Here ’s why opioid addicts are victims
Tom’s feet are shackled so he can’t bolt from the hospital bed when the prison guard isn’t looking. The guard places handcuffs on him when he walks to the bathroom and stands just outside the door as Tom relieves himself. Despite being treated for a deep tissue infection in one finger, Tom is in generally good shape — lean but muscular with the strong hands of a workman. Back in his room, sitting up in bed, he holds up his hand wrapped in gauze and asks about returning to his carpentry job when he’s healed.
Tom is not unlike many of my patients who are victims of the opioid epidemic. He had started taking opioids...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - July 24, 2017 Category: General Medicine Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/vincent-degennaro-jr" rel="tag" > Vincent DeGennaro, Jr., MD, MPH < /a > Tags: Physician Medications Pain management Source Type: blogs
Accountable Care Organizations: Risk and Reward
In January 2015, HHS set the target of funneling 50% of Medicare payments through alternative payment models and tying 90% of fee-for-service payments to quality or value by the end of 2018. MACRA is part of that shift by changing the way Medicare pays physicians. Now, as reported by Modern Healthcare, the prospect of rewards from value-based care arrangements like ACOs is luring a “small but growing” number of ACOs into risker contracts with Medicare. However, as the article stresses, this is still a minority number of ACOs, with the vast majority in “upside-only” models where they share in savings but do not risk...
Source: Policy and Medicine - July 20, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
A $1.7 Million/ Year CEO of a Safety Net Hospital - Alleged to Have Hired a Dangerous Surgeon, Paid Unethical Bonuses, and Associated with Organized Crime
We have long contended that a major reason for health care dysfunction isperverse incentives, including those that allowtop health care leaders to become rich by putting money ahead of patient care. We have presented case after case supporting this point,most recently including a collection of generously compensated top executives of non-profit hospital systems whose pay seemed disproportionate to their personal achievement, and unrelated to their hospitals ' clinical outcomes or quality of care.Such cases, with their recitations of monetary amounts and repeated public relations talking points, can be rather dry.&nbs...
Source: Health Care Renewal - June 29, 2017 Category: Health Management Tags: crime executive compensation fraud hospital systems hospitals mission-hostile management perverse incentives Source Type: blogs
CMS Releases Proposed MACRA Rule (Including CME as Improvement Activity)
On Tuesday, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the long-anticipated proposed rule updating the Quality Payment Program – the program implementing the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) – for 2018. The rule continues the CMS trend of allowing more and more physicians to delay MACRA implementation, as many smaller and rural providers have said their lack of capital and resources make compliance difficult.
MACRA will eliminate the sustainable growth formula and replace it with a .5% annual rate increase through 2019, when physicians are encouraged to shift to either ...
Source: Policy and Medicine - June 21, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
CMS Releases Proposed 2018 MACRA Rule (Including QI CME as Improvement Activity)
On Tuesday, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the long-anticipated proposed rule updating the Quality Payment Program – the program implementing the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) – for 2018. The rule continues the CMS trend of allowing more and more physicians to delay MACRA implementation, as many smaller and rural providers have said their lack of capital and resources make compliance difficult.
MACRA will eliminate the sustainable growth formula and replace it with a .5% annual rate increase through 2019, when physicians are encouraged to shift to either ...
Source: Policy and Medicine - June 21, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
Savings Reported By CMS Do Not Measure True ACO Savings
While participation in Medicare accountable care organizations (ACOs) continues to grow—9 million Medicare beneficiaries are currently attributed to Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) ACOs alone, up 1.3 million since 2016—controversy swirls around their impact as analysts disagree about the success of the model. Some argue that ACOs have saved money (albeit a small amount) and that they could realize greater savings as the years go on. Others believe that there have been no savings at all from ACOs and that reform requires a new approach.
Some of this disagreement arises from the commentators’ differing c...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - June 19, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Michael Chernew, Christopher Barbey and J. Michael McWilliams Tags: Costs and Spending Medicare Payment Policy ACOs Source Type: blogs
Medicare ’s Programs Should Compete
Over the past two decades, Medicare has evolved into three separate programs or payment systems: fee-for-service (FFS), sometimes termed traditional Medicare; Medicare Advantage (MA); and the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP), or accountable care organizations (ACOs). Regulations governing these three programs differ substantially. For example, participating plans, physicians, and other eligible clinicians are reimbursed and financially incented in different ways. Under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) of 2015, FFS providers and some ACOs can earn an annual bonus that would increase their reimb...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - June 15, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: David Introcaso Tags: Costs and Spending Featured Insurance and Coverage Medicare Payment Policy Accountable Care Organizations AHCA MACRA Medicare Advantage Medicare Shared Savings Program MedPAC Source Type: blogs
Moving The Needle On Primary Care: Covered California ’s Strategy To Lower Costs And Improve Quality
Many of the national policy discussions today are focused on who will be covered and the scope of benefits consumers will receive. Unfortunately, as important as these issues are, neither of them in any way addresses the underlying issues of high health care costs and the highly variable quality of care in the United States. To foster sustainable reform, we need to focus on promoting high-value care, which means we need to address not only insurance coverage but also reform of the delivery system. Covered California, a state health insurance exchange, has taken advantage of its role as a purchaser to work with health plans...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - June 14, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Lance Lang, Peter V. Lee and Kevin Grumbach Tags: Costs and Spending Featured Insurance and Coverage Organization and Delivery Quality CalPERS Covered California Health Benefit Exchange Contracting patient-centered medical homes Payment Reform Primary Care Source Type: blogs
Just 24 Hours to Go Until Stop Worrying Today Closes
Just a quick heads up today.
There’s only 24 hours left until registration for The Stop Worrying Today Course closes.
Until 1.00 p.m EDT (that’s 18.00 GMT) on Monday the 29th of May you can still join it.
So if you are interested in that – and in getting the free bonus course on optimism worth $29 + the 6 extra bonuses – then now is the time to take action.
Click here to learn more about Stop Worrying Today and to join it before the doors close
(Source: Practical Happiness and Awesomeness Advice That Works | The Positivity Blog)
Source: Practical Happiness and Awesomeness Advice That Works | The Positivity Blog - May 28, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Henrik Edberg Tags: Personal Development Source Type: blogs
The Stop Worrying Today Course is Now Open to Join (but Closes on Monday)
The 7-week Stop Worrying Today Course is now open again to join.
If you join during this period you also get free life-time access to all the material in my The Invincible Summer – an 8-Week Course in Optimism as a special bonus.
Plus, you get free access to 6 extra bonuses I created last summer.
The registration to join this course will only be open for 5 days this time, until 1.00 p.m EDT (that’s 17.00 GMT) on Monday the 29th of May.
Click here to learn more and to join the course
I started working on this course two years ago but it all started 10 years ago when I made a decision to not let this toxic habit lim...
Source: Practical Happiness and Awesomeness Advice That Works | The Positivity Blog - May 24, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Henrik Edberg Tags: Personal Development Source Type: blogs
Will the Current Crises Finally Prompt America to Address How it is Haunted by Corruption and Impunity?
There is one tiny silver lining in the political storm clouds swirling over the US. Some of the issues about which we have been ranting onHealth Care Renewal are no longer so easily dismissed. We have long harangued about the ruinous effects ofhealth care corruption, the role ofimpunity in enabling worsening corruption, our lack of good ways to challenge these problems, and our ongoing inablity to even discuss what amounts to taboo topics (which we dubbed the "anechoic effect. " ) In response, we have been called alarmists, nay-sayers, and worse. Now the parade of crises created by the Trump regime ...
Source: Health Care Renewal - May 19, 2017 Category: Health Management Tags: anechoic effect health care corruption impunity Source Type: blogs
Low Income Housing Tax Cronyism
Discussion of reforms to reduce housing costshere. (Source: Cato-at-liberty)
Source: Cato-at-liberty - May 10, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Chris Edwards Source Type: blogs
6 New Bonuses for the Self-Esteem Course
Just a quick update today.
During the winter and spring I’ve spent time on creating 6 new and free bonuses for anyone that joins the Self-Esteem Course.
They include, for example, a 60-page guide on how to improve your self-confidence and a workbook to help you with that.
Note: If you’ve joined the course in the past and didn’t get an email about the new bonuses yesterday then send me an email and I’ll send a reply with the download links.
Click here to learn more about the Self-Esteem Course and the new bonuses
(Source: Practical Happiness and Awesomeness Advice That Works | The Positivity Blog)
Source: Practical Happiness and Awesomeness Advice That Works | The Positivity Blog - April 30, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Henrik Edberg Tags: Personal Development Source Type: blogs
BioMed Central and SpringerOpen sign the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment
In 1999 BioMed Central made high quality research open to anyone who wanted to access and could use it. By making open access sustainable, we changed the world of academic publishing. A core part of our role has always been to distribute, and communicate the research we publish beyond its original audience. We want our authors’ research to be as widely read, cited, and talked about as possible; and therefore, we have a real interest in how academia measures the impact of research.
The Impact Factor (IF) is the traditional, and most widely used method for gauging the quality of journals. In use since 1975, the IF is fa...
Source: BioMed Central Blog - April 26, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Rachel Burley Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
BioMed Central and SpringerOpen sign the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment
In 1999 BioMed Central made high quality research open to anyone who wanted to access and could use it. By making open access sustainable, we changed the world of academic publishing. A core part of our role has always been to distribute, and communicate the research we publish beyond its original audience. We want our authors’ research to be as widely read, cited, and talked about as possible; and therefore, we have a real interest in how academia measures the impact of research.
The Impact Factor (IF) is the traditional, and most widely used method for gauging the quality of journals. In use since 1975, the IF is fa...
Source: BioMed Central Blog - April 26, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Rachel Burley Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
