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Archive for the "Medicare/Care Coordination" category

HSR Study: Focus on High-Cost Medicare Beneficiaries

Following the Money: Factors Associated with the Cost of Treating High-Cost Medicare Beneficiaries. Health Services Research; February 9, 2011 Access to the full online article is currently available for free on the Center for Studying Health System Change website. Key excerpts: Conclusions. Health reform policies currently envisioned to improve care and lower costs may have small [...]

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MGH Medicare Disease/Care Management Demo Shows Home Run Results!

Medicare has (finally) recently released a report showing home run results for a disease/care management demonstration project! Evaluation of Medicare Care Management for High Cost Beneficiaries (CMHCB) Demonstration: Massachusetts General Hospital and Massachusetts General Physicians Organization (MGH) Remind Me Again About the CMHCB Medicare Demo… The CMHCB started in 2005. My recollection is that the [...]

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Is “CMS Innovation Center” an Oxymoron?

A press release earlier this week announced the new CMS Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. If you went to their Twitter feed today, here’s what you’d see: This struck me as a great pictorial representation of the broader challenges the CMS Innovation Center faces: They’ve kinda sorta figured out there’s a conversation going on out there [...]

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Pilots, Demonstrations & Innovation in the PPACA Healthcare Reform Legislation

Here’s a bit of trivia that will make you the hit of the next cocktail party you attend.  How many times are the words “demonstration” and “pilot” mentioned in the newly passed Federal healthcare reform legislation — the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA)? Answer: “demonstration” — 312 mentions “pilot” — 80 mentions This weekend [...]

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Is Gawande Right? Are Pilot Programs the Key to Delivery System Cost Reductions?

Atul Gawande’s most recent New Yorker article “Testing, Testing” addresses the critics who lament that there is no master plan to curb delivery system costs in pending health reform legislation. Gawande retorts: “Is that a bad thing?” …and he answers his own question by describing the value of pilot programs contained in both the Senate [...]

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Medicare Extends PHR Pilot — Big Mistake!

Medicare announced today that it is extending its Personal Health Record (PHR) pilot project for residents of Utah and Arizona. This is a waste of time and taxpayer dollars. Those of you who read my blog know that I’m a big fan of PHRs, but you have to know when you’re backing the wrong approach. What’s [...]

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The Real Secret Sauce of Medicare’s Participation in Regional Collaboratives — Network Effects

Last week I asked whether Medicare’s Biggest Change in 40 Years is on the horizon. That post described and discussed implications of Medicare’s new direction for the medical home — the shelving of Medicare Medical Home Demonstration (MMHD) and the refocusing on the recently announced Multi-Payer Advanced Primary Care Initiative (MAPCI). In that post I touched briefly on [...]

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Three Years Of Medical Home Demonstration Preparation Down the Drain?

Do you remember the scene in the movie Animal House where Bluto Blutarski laments “…seven years of college education down the drain?” Why aren’t primary care physicians expressing similar laments about  the shelving of the MMHD (Medicare Medical Home Demonstration) in favor of the MAPCI (Multi-Payer Advanced Primary Care Initiative). My colleague Jaan Sidorov, MD and [...]

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Medicare’s Biggest Change in 40 Years on the Horizon?

Earlier this week CMS issued a typically cryptic Announcement indicating that they were shelving the Medicare Medical Home Demonstration (MMHD) and instead would focus on the recently announced Multi-Payer Advanced Primary Care Initiative (MAPCI). My blog post from Tuesday provides details and asks the question “What does all this mean?” Today’s blog post will tackle: Medicare’s [...]

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