ACO: Let's start with organized

Dartmouth's Eliott Fischer once asked whether accountable care organizations would be accountable, caring, and organized.  For this concept to succeed, things are going to have to work a lot better than set forth in a friend's recent note about her elderly parent:After Mom spent the night in the ER a week ago, I asked the hospital to send the assisted living place the discharge summary (which they had requested, to their credit.)  The hospital said they would when it was dictated.  I got the fax number for them and, of course, it never happened.So now the assisted living place, which has its own physician, wants to draw her blood tomorrow to do lab work. I mentioned that, when we interviewed this facility, I had been told they had a computer connection to the hospital, and was this not so?They hemmed and hawed and said, "Yes, maybe."I said, "Then why don't you look in the computer and get her lab work from the ER visit and then you will have the information you want? ""Um, well, I guess we could try to do that. "So then they said, "Are you saying you don't want us to draw her blood tomorrow? "I said, "Yes, that's what I'm saying. It would be better for everyone if you get the lab work that already exists." (Mom is a difficult stick anyway, by the way.)It's like the 2 facilities, 3 miles apart, just function in parallel as if the other place doesn't even exist!! It absolutely boggles the mind. And of course they would charge Medicare AGAIN for the...
Source: Running a hospital - Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs