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Chronic Disease Management • Technology • Strategy • Issues and Trends

Archive for the "DM Megatrend # 4: Providers" category

20 Minutes of Questions Won’t Fit into a 7 Minute Doctor Visit

Greetings from Boston.  I’ve been attending and speaking at the Inaugural Summit on Behavioral Telehealth: Technology for Behavior Change & Disease Management.
The conference chair is Dr. Steve Locke, Prof. of Psychiatry at Harvard.  He opened the meeting yesterday with a thoughtful line of questioning to the audience.
Dr. Locke asked “How many of you audience members have participated [...]

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European vs U.S. Primary Care: We Have Things Backwards

The status of primary care is dramatically different in Europe vs. the U.S.
While doing background reading, I was startled by the title of a book: “Primary care in the driver’s seat? Organisational reform in European primary care” The book was reviewed in the International Journal of Integrated Care .
Is primary care capable of taking a [...]

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A Founding Father of DM Astonishingly Declares: “My Kid is Ugly”

Al Lewis, one of the founding fathers of DM, has shaped the face of the DM industry probably more than other any single individual. (This is all fine unless you happen to be the person whose face is being shaped by Al.)
Al has been unabashedly pro-DM.  Until now.  Al writes in a recent article in Managed Healthcare Executive:

Disease management as we now define [...]

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Despite Limited Penetration, Integrated Delivery Systems Have Advanced Chronic Care

The 1990’s experiment around development of integrated delivery systems (IDSs) mostly did not take root. This experiment was primarily about financial integration — doctors joining with hospitals so that they could together contract with health insurers for capitated reimbursement, hospitals starting their own health plan, or hospitals buying physician practices as a way of guaranteeing [...]

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United’s Move to Fine Physicians: The Other POV

Joe Paduda at the Managed Care Matters blog makes some great counterpoints defending United Health’s moves threatening to fine doctors for making out-of-network lab referrals.  I recommend that you read his essay and his readers comments.
In my posting from a couple days ago — Doctors and Health Plans: Can Care Management Opportunities Reconcile the Hatfields and the [...]

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Doctors and Health Plans: Can Care Management Opportunities Reconcile the Hatfields and the McCoys?

I’m going to try something different in this blog posting. I’d like to introduce a fairly open-ended issue that 1) is of great importance, and 2) is highly debatable.   I’ll be the first to admit that my thinking about this is half baked.
Here’s the issue. Over the coming years, will health plans and doctors:

Continue to [...]

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Healthcare Informatics Webinar — Disease Management (DM): Will Providers Seize the Opportunity to Be Back in Charge?

Next Thursday April 12, Dr. Randy Williams and I will jointly be presenting our perspectives in a webinar entitled:. 

Disease Management (DM): Will Providers Seize the Opportunity to Be Back in Charge?

Click the link for details about the agenda and registration   You can receive a 15% discount by entering the following Promotional Code:   0412VK

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AARP On the Fence About Care Coordination Roles

Just in case this particular item hasn’t yet reached the top of your own to read pile, let me bring to your attention recent testimony to the Senate Finance Committee on Medicare Payment of Physician Services.
The testimony was presented on March 1 by Byron Thames, MD, an AARP Board member. With over 35 million members, [...]

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Porter/Teisberg JAMA Article: Out-of-the-Box or Out-of-Touch?

“In theory, there is no difference between theory and reality. In reality, there is.”  Yogi Bera

Out-of-the-box thinking is good; out-of-touch thinking is not. Dr. Porter and Teisberg’s (PT’s) recent article in JAMA “How Physicians Can Change the Future of Health Care” is disappointing, unrealistic and dangerous.

Disappointing: Please Answer the Challenges About Why [...]

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Today’s BFO: How can P4P Work W/O a QB?

Translation  Todays blinding flash of the obvious (BFO): How can you expect pay-for-performance (P4P) programs in Medicare to work with out a designated physician quarterback (QB)?
Please allow me to elaborate.
P4P programs are based on two assumptions:

Patients are assigned to a physician or a practice that will have primary responsibility for their care, and
That a meaningful [...]

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The Cats are Herding!

We’ve all heard the saying that getting doctors to agree is like herding cats.
Well, it’s happening.
Four physician organizations representing 330,000 doctors issued a press release voicing their support for Joint Principles of a Patient-Centered Medical Home. The four groups are the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American [...]

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