Rethinking MACRA Part II

By JOHN HALAMKA In my blog posts, I speak from the heart without a specific political or economic motivation. Although I’ve not written about highly controversial subjects such as religion, gun control, or reproductive policy, some of the topics in my posts can be polarizing.   Such as was the case with MACRA. Some agreed with my initial analysis that clinicians will have a hard time translating complex MACRA payment processes into altered clinical behavior.   Others felt I was overharsh, negative and inappropriate.  It’s never my intent to criticize people, instead I want encourage dialog about ideas.  In that spirit, here’s my opinion on how we should evolve from fee for service to pay for value/outcomes. 1.  Humans can never really focus on more than 3 things at a time.  Although we sometimes believe multi-tasking is efficient, in reality we do work faster with less quality.    Instead of 6 or 8 dimensions of Meaningful Use performance combined with a large number of quality indicators, why not delegate each medical specialty the task of choosing 3 highly desirable outcomes to focus on each year, then reward those outcomes?  For example, I have glaucoma.   Asking my opthalmologist to record my smoking status or engage in secure messaging with me is probably less important than ensuring my intraocular pressures are measured, appropriate medications are given, and my visual field does not significantly worsen.    The cost to society of my blindness would be...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized John Halamaka MACRA Source Type: blogs