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Medicare
Guest Post: The CMS Announcement Of Medicare Health Support Program Cancellation — What It Means For Buyers
by Al Lewis, JD
Add the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to the growing list of people and organizations who cannot find financial savings through disease management. Weeks after “lowering the bar” on MHS program savings requirements to 0% from 5%, CMS cancelled the program altogether due to the unlikelihood that the much-reduced threshold for savings would be achieved in the remaining months of the three-year measurement period.
Yet even as CMS’ conclusion mirrors that of the Congressional Budget Office, and the RAND Corporation, other organizations and […]
Insufficient Evidence to End Medicare Health Support
Thomas Wilson, PhD, DrPH and Vince Kuraitis
Last Tuesday during the cocktail hour, CMS issued documents portending the end of the Medicare Health Support (MHS) project. Â
We initially used the word “bizarre” to describe the announcement from CMS’ staff. After further thought, “reckless” and/or “insubordinate” strike closer to home.
First, let’s have the head-honcho at CMS instruct us on how things should be done. In September 2007 Kerry Weems, the new CMS Administrator, declared that “cocktail hour press releases” from his agency […]
$389 M of Healthways’ Market Value Vaporizes After CMS Announcement. What Happened?
Healthways stock price declined today by $10.52 (15.9%) after CMS “announcement” about ending Medicare Health Support (MHS) Phase 1. This equates to a loss of $389 million in market capitalization…poof! Gone. Healthways is one of the remaining five participants in the MHS program.
Without pointing fingers, it’s obvious that investors were surprised by the news.  What happened?
CMS: “Rumors of Medicare Health Support’s Death Have Not Been Greatly Exaggerated”
Vince Kuraitis and Thomas Wilson, PhD, DrPH
Today’s POO (persistent obfuscatory orations) Award goes to the Centers for Medicare Services (CMS) for their posting of two bizarre documents updating progress on the Medicare Health Support (MHS) program. The documents “appeared” (no press release, no announcement, a reference to “today” but no date) on the web page for the MHS demonstration project.
While a casual reader would probably review these documents and scratch their head, we interpret them as a death knell for the Medicare Health Support […]
Health Wonk Review at e-CareManagement
Welcome!
Since this is my first time hosting the Health Wonk Review, I really didn’t know what to expect.  I have to say that I’ve learned a lot while poring over the insight and wisdom of my fellow bloggers. Fortunately, this week’s entries fell into neat categories:
In-Store Clinics
Physicians
Problems — U.S. & World Health Systems
Solutions — U.S. & World Health Systems
Cats, Dogs and Kangaroos
Just in case that last category, doesn’t look too familiar, let’s revisit the whole point of the Health Wonk Review:
Health Wonk […]
The PowerPoint — DM Megatrends 2008
Last week I did the major annual tune-up of my presentation on Disease Management Megatrends for the MCOL Future Care Web Summit.Â
I’m pleased to share a copy of the PowerPoint presentation with you, and I hope you find it useful and provocative. You can view and/or download a copy here (6MB). This version contains 77 slides, which would be about the length I’d use for a 3 hour workshop; you’d see a more compact version for a conference keynote, Board summary, or management […]
Podcast: The 20 Minute Version of “DM Megatrends”
Over the past week I’ve been doing a major tune-up of my presentation on Disease Management Megatrends for the annual MCOL Future Care Web Summit.Â
More typically, DM Megatrends is 45–90 minute presentation with accompanying PowerPoint slides.
As part of the Web Summit, the good folks at MCOL asked me to do a short podcast on highlights of this presentation. They’re allowing me to share it with you… click here to save or listen to the podcast.
fyi, the DM Megatrends are:
MAGNITUDE: We are just scratching the […]
POE Award: Linda Magno of CMS Acknowledges the Elephant in the Room with Medicare DM
Just about everybody in the world has been talking about problems that Medicare is having with chronic disease management (DM) demonstration projects…everybody except the folks at Medicare.
Well, that’s finally changing. Today’s POE (plain old English) award is presented to Linda Magno, Director, Medicare Demonstrations at CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services).
Here are a couple of slides from Ms. Magno’s presentation at the Patient Centered Primary Care Collaborative Summit on November 7:
Disease Management and the Medicare Health Support (MHS) Project: “Houston, we have a problem.”
Thomas Wilson, PhD, DrPH and Vince Kuraitis, JD, MBA
The conventional wisdom in the disease management (DM) community has been that the Medicare Health Support (MHS) project would provide the evidence to resolve two issues:
First, MHS would once-and-for-all resolve the issue of “does DM have ROI? (return on investment).” It was thought that the randomized control trial process employed in MHS would provide scientific evidence to prove that DM has a positive ROI, clearing the way for unqualified acceptance and widespread […]
Teleconference — New Health Plan Strategies for Disease Management: Lessons Learned From the Medicare Health Support Pilot
Please join me at a live teleconference next Tuesday, August 21 at 1 pm Eastern:
New Health Plan Strategies for Disease Management: Lessons Learned From the Medicare Health Support Pilot
Click the link for details about the agenda and registration.
The faculty includes:
CHRISTOBEL SELECKY, chairman, president and CEO of LifeMasters Supported SelfCare, Inc. She also is immediate past president of the Disease Management Association of America (DMAA).
JEAN BISIO, CEO of Green Ribbon Health LLC, a joint-venture company created by Humana Inc. and Pfizer Inc. […]