e-CareManagement blog

Chronic Disease Management • Technology • Strategy • Issues and Trends

Lifemasters Bankruptcy: Will CMS Earn Reputation as a Good Business Partner or Thug?

In my post from Monday on LifeMasters seeking Chapter 11, I dropped a BTW comment.
The part that’s puzzling to me is the statement that LifeMasters owes $125 M to CMS.  That’s hard to figure…the company only participated in MHS for a few months, and to my knowledge MHS is the only Medicare demo that required guaranteed savings [...]

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Medicare Health Support (MHS) Claims Another Victim: LifeMasters Files for Chapter 11

Updated 6:10 pm, September 14, 2009
One bad deal can ruin your day.
Today, LifeMasters filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.  According to its press release:
“The Chapter 11 filing is the most efficient path for the company to restructure liabilities that are a result of Demonstration Projects previously performed under contracts with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid [...]

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Medicare Health Support: 8 Takeaways on Building Better Bridges

by Thomas Wilson, PhD, DrPH and Vince Kuraitis

What’s the right metaphor for Medicare Health Support (MHS), CMS’ major experiment with disease management for Medicare beneficiaries?  We prefer to look it as a bridge failure that presents an opportunity to improve future engineering and design.
We’ve now had the time to read, reread, and reread again the very [...]

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CMS Releases 2nd Report on Medicare Health Support

by Vince Kuraitis and Thomas Wilson, PhD, DrPH
CMS has just released the 2nd Report to Congress evaluating the Medicare Health Support (MHS) program. MHS is Medicare’s most visible and significant demo focusing on chronic disease management.
We’ve been poring over the report and will provide more detailed analysis and implications later this week. This 2nd Report to Congress [...]

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Finally! CMS Provides a Flood of Details About the Medicare Medical Home Demo

I’ve been critical in the past when CMS has been silent in explaining their thinking, so I’ll start this post by congratulating CMS on sharing a flood of details about the upcoming Medicare Medical Home Demonstration project.

An email from CMS arrived in my inbox this morning at 2 am.  That email notified me that they have [...]

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Details “Emerge” on the Medicare Medical Home Demonstration

Where would one expect to find CMS’ latest thinking on the upcoming Medicare Medical Home Demonstration project? The obvious answer would be “on the Official CMS MMHD home page ”, but you’d be wrong.
CMS has issued a Medicare Medical Home Demonstration Payment Contractor RFP available on the Federal Business Opportunities website. Thanks to the [...]

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Medical Home PowerPoint and Latest Perspectives

Last week my esteemed colleague Dr. Jaan Sidorov and I conducted a webinar for WRG on Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) developments.
The process of updating a PowerPoint forces one to collect one’s thoughts, and I’m glad to share with you the PowerPoint slides along with a few highlights about the evolution of the PCMH. [...]

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The Medical Home: Pull the RUC Out

This third and final post in the series addresses questions about the future of the Patient Centered Medical Home (PCHM):

What’s problematic about using the RUC methodology with the PCMH?
What’s the optimal level for a PCMH care management fee?
Should primary care leaders pull the RUC out? How? 

What’s Problematic About Using the RUC Methodology with the PCMH?
There are [...]

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The Medical Home: Confusion Over Care Management Fees

The honeymoon is over.
Prior to April 29, 2008, reviews of the Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) model  had been uniformly enthusiastic and positive.
Today the PCMH model is hitting reality — someone’s going to have to bring home money to pay the bills. On April 29 the American Medical Association/Specialty Society RVS Update Committee (RUC) released a  report making recommendations relating [...]

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