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Health Policy/Reform
Is Hospital-Physician Integration Sustainable?
Reprinted courtesy of MCOL.
Perspectives on a Selected Key Topic |Â Â Â Â April 2011/May 2011Â Â Â Â |Â Â Volume Three Issue Two
Will a material number of hospitals and their core medical […]
Tire Kickers Need Not Apply: 8 First Impressions of the Medicare ACO Rule
On March 31, CMS released the long-awaited “Medicare Shared Savings Program: Accountable Care Organizations” document (ACO Rule). Read the details here (strong suggestion: unless you’re working on your PhD in ACOs, start with the fact sheets).
There are many surprises. Here are eight first impressions on this 429 page tome:
The bar has been set high…very high. Tire kickers need not apply.
Don’t expect to see many or any small ACOs.
Patients will be confused by ACOs.
Concerns over maintaining competition and avoiding antitrust are […]
ACO Roundtable on blogtalkradio: Friday, April 1
On Friday April 1st, 2011 (yes, ‘April Fools day’) at 4 PM Eastern and 1 PM Pacific
ACO Watch: A Mid Week Review will host a special roundtable series on the ‘hot of the press’ Notice of Proposed Rules’ pertaining to the implementation of Accountable Care Organizations. For the published rule, click here.
The roundtable team will consist of Mark Browne, MD, PYA, aka @consultdoc, Vince Kuraitis, e-Care Management blog, aka @VinceKuraitis, and David Harlow, the Harlow Group, LLC, aka @healthblawg, with Gregg Masters, aka @2healthguru, as moderator and host.
To listen live, […]
The New ACO Rule is Here…The New ACO Rule is Here…and more!
429 p. Proposed ACO Rule
ACO Fact sheet from HHS
Medicare Fact Sheet: What Providers Need to Know
HHS press release
Don Berwick’s article on ACOs in the NEJM
ACO Quality Performance Standards Summary
FTC/DOJ Joint Antitrust Statement on ACOs
TheHill article “Leaked memo reveals Dem strategy for defending healthcare reg”
The leaked memo
A One in a Hundred Whitepaper: “Better to Best” Transcends PCMH, Care Coordination, Access, HIT, and ACO Payment Reform
Let me try to get you in the right frame of mind to read one of the most remarkable white papers in a long time: Better to BEST: Value Driving Elements of the Patient Centered Medical Home and Accountable Care Organizations — released yesterday by the Commonwealth Fund, Dartmouth Institute, and PCPCC.
Having been a debater in high school and then trained as a lawyer, my default mode of thinking is to be critical:
“Hey, Vince, how ya doin’? Great day isn’t […]
The 6th Thing to Watch in the Medicare ACO Regulations
Health care lobbyists and advocates are bracing for six pages of the health care reform law to explode into more than 1,000 pages of federal regulations when the Department of Health and Human Services releases its long-delayed accountable care organization rules this week. Politico
What should you be looking for as you snuggle by the fireplace this weekend reading the draft ACOÂ regs?
Rob Lazerow writes a helpful article listing 5 Things to Watch in the Medicare Shared Savings Program Proposed Rule. […]
The Crucial Distinction Between “Accountable Care” and ACOs
While in Philadelphia earlier this week, my colleague Dr. David Nace presented me with a print copy of McKesson Relay Health’s newest whitepaper — Providing Accountability: Accountable Care Concepts for Providers.  I felt honored as he handed it to me and confided that it was one of only six copies in print. I took time to read it carefully on the long flight home.
The whitepaper is a great overview of accountable care and ACOs (Accountable Care Organizations). It’s a quick and easily digestible read.
However, there is one […]
Is Economic Credentialing A Tool for Primary Care to Lead ACOs?
Is economic credentialing — the use of economic factors such as loyalty and utilization rates in the physician credentialing process — a potential tool for primary care physicians to lead ACOs?  and reestablish the vitality of primary care in American health care?
Keith Wright and Gregory Drutchas’ incisive article Economic Credentialing: A Prescription To Secure Shared Savings Under Accountable Care provides useful history and context about economic credentialing:
For many years, the use of economic factors by hospitals in making medical staff credentialing decisions […]
Summarizing Early PCAST HIT Critiques: “Brilliant, but they didn’t do all their technical homework.”
Last week PCAST (The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology) issued a major report — “Realizing the Full Potential of Health Information Technology to Improve Healthcare for Americans: The Path Forward”.Â
The reviews are filtering in and I’m seeing two major themes:Â
The vision is on target: “extraordinary”, “breathtakingly innovative”.
These guys didn’t do all their technical homework. The range varies, but the message is consistent.Â
Here are some early critiques of the PCAST report. Let the debate continue!
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 — they’ve joined Twitter
They haven’t figured out that they need to listen:Â Following = 0
They haven’t figured out they they need to talk:Â Tweets = 0
I remain hopeful, […]