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Medicare
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 demo requirements were extremely similar to the Medicare Health Support (MHS) project, with a few exceptions: 1) Applicants had to include direct care providers (delivery systems, physicians) in their program design, 2) patient populations […]
Is Physician EHR Adoption Getting Past the Penguin Problem?
Remember the penguin problem described by economists?
No one moves unless everyone moves, so no one moves.Â
Overcoming the penguin problem has a lot to do with creating expectations. A recent writing by Dr. James O’Connor in Physician Practice expresses a voice from the physician community that I’ve never heard before.  His essay is entitled “Meaningful Use — Doctors Have No Choice”.
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, […]
Hospital Readmissions Avoidance “Programs” — Vendors and Hospitals Not All On the Same Wavelength
Last week I attended and participated in an excellent conference — the National Reducing Hospital Readmissions Forum sponsored by World Research Group.
One of my main take aways is to observe a simple — yet huge — difference in mindset between hospital executives and vendors.
Over the past few months I’ve heard many vendors with diverse health care offerings talking about building readmission avoidance “programs” that they want to sell to hospitals. Their idea here is to put together a soup-to-nuts offering of technologies and services […]
The Achilles Heel of ACOs? Shared Savings Payment Model Unlikely to Motivate Hospitals
Sometimes you read something and the full impact doesn’t hit you until hours — perhaps days — later. As I was out mountain biking today, the importance of something I ran across yesterday suddenly hit me.
Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) are today’s cure-du-jour for reforming the health care delivery system. Bob Berensen, MD of the Urban Institute strongly questions whether the shared savings model under current legislation provides enough economic incentive for hospitals to disrupt their existing core business of acute, inpatient care.
The dialogue […]
“Disease Management” RIP
The Care Continuum Alliance has mercifully and wisely rebranded it’s name and eliminated the initials “DMAA”. See its press release: Care Continuum Alliance Launches New Brand for Population Health Improvement. (As a reminder, DMAA originally stood for Disease Management Association of America.)
I for one say “hurrah, and good riddance”.
Where Did the Term “Disease Management” (DM) Trip Up?
Status Report: HITPC and Workgroup Activities on HITECH Stages 2 & 3
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OK, let me be the first to admit that today’s “just-the-facts-ma’am” post might be a little dry…but trust me, its really important stuff to know in understanding the process of how the Health IT Policy Committee (HITPC) and its workgroups are approaching formulating recommendations for HITECH Stages 2 and 3.
At this point at least two different workgroups are involved in developing recommendations for HITECH Stages 2 and 3.
A newly formed Quality Measures Workgroup. This group will “produce initial recommendations on […]
Megatrend Spotting: Health Plan Role of Having “Best Data About YOUR Medical Conditions” is Up for Grabs
Who has the most comprehensive data about YOUR clinical conditions?
For most people, the answer today is “your health plan”, but it’s not at all clear that health plans will continue to have this role in the future.
As physicians and hospitals adopt EHRs, it’s foreseeable that clinical data about patients will be far more available and accessible.
Will patient data become:
A jockeying point for control and business advantage between health plans and care providers,
A collaborative opportunity to optimize clinical care and care […]
Medicare MAPCP Medical Home Demo: CMS Kicks Sands in the States’ Faces
by Jaan Sidorov, MD and Vince Kuraitis
The Medicare MAPCP (Multi-Payer Advanced Primary Care Practice) demo promised to be Medicare’s Biggest Change in 40 Years…
…but the emerging reality isn’t living up to the promise.
In this post, we’ll discuss:
The Promise
An Overview of the MAPCP Demo
Our Main Takeaway: Emerging Reality Suggests Medicare Will Be a “Difficult” Partner
Conclusion: Think Twice Before Signing Up
1) The Promise
The sandbox metaphor was first used by the National Academy for State Health Policy:
For the 10 or more […]
Is HITECH Working? #6: HITECH and Health Reform Objectives are Synergistic
by Vince Kuraitis JD, MBA and David C. Kibbe MD, MBA
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….or to be more specific, HITECH is synergistic with payment reform that could come from the recently passed national health care reform legislation — the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).
We’ll keep this post fairly short and try to avoid many of the more divisive aspects of this topic. The need for healthcare payment reform is well understood on both sides of the aisle:
Realizing the full potential of health IT depends in […]