BetterCare for All
Discussions of Medicare for All substitute structure for substance. They engender a debate about the trappings of care delivery, administration, and cost, but don’t address the fundamental issue, which is how to provide genuinely better care for people of all ages and economic circumstances.
The premise of Medicare for All is that a single payer will provide better and more cost effective care. But what is really needed is single entity accountability. Whether there are one or many, whether they are public or private, is not as important as that one organization and its people become responsible for the total health a...
Source: The Health Care Blog - November 20, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Health Policy Medicare health reform Med4All Medicare For All Robert Herzog Source Type: blogs
Primary Care Is at the Center of a Health Revolution
By KEVIN WANG, MD
If our
urgent-care-as-healthcare culture isn’t killing us, it’s certainly wasting our
time and resources.
Consider these facts highlighted by Advanced Medical Reviews, based on various studies:
U.S. physicians report that more than 20 percent of overall medical
care is not needed. The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that up to
30 percent of the costs of medical care delivered in the U.S. pay for tests,
procedures, doctor visits, hospital stays, and other services that may not
actually improve patient health. Unnecessary medical treatment impacts the healthca...
Source: The Health Care Blog - October 2, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Hospitals Medical Practice Physicians Primary Care advanced primary care Care coordination health coaching Kevin Wang value-based care Vera Whole Health Source Type: blogs
The Opportunity in Disruption, Part 4: Success Strategies for Provider and Payer CFOs
By JOE FLOWER
The system is unstable. We are already seeing the precursor waves of massive and multiple disturbances to come. Disruption at key leverage points, new entrants, shifting public awareness and serious political competition cast omens and signs of a highly changed future.
So what’s the frequency? What are the smart bets for a strategic chief financial officer at a payer or provider facing such a bumpy ride? They are radically different from today’s dominant consensus strategies. In this five-part series, Joe Flower lays out the argument, the nature of the instability, and the best-bet strategies.
Pr...
Source: The Health Care Blog - September 30, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
It ’ s not a beer
When we announced a few weeks ago that our IPA had executed our first contract, I found myself explaining what an IPA is and what it does. An IPA is a business entity that assists multiple independent organizations to contract with managed care organizations (health plans). But it’s uncommon (unheard of?) for an IPA to work with organizations that are not physicians. We even had to update the Wikipedia entry on IPA to clarify that physicians aren’t the only ones who can create or join an IPA.
Where we are now
We have over thirty organizations participating in the IPA.We have two executed agreements with h...
Source: Docnotes - August 27, 2019 Category: Primary Care Authors: Jacob Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Podcast: Children ’s Treatment for Mental Health Issues
Today’s guest is Okpara Rice, CEO of Tanager Place, a mental health facility for children in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Unlike adults, children are not in control of their own environment, and anything that affects a child will affect their families, and vice versa. So, what is the best way to help these kids? Join us as Okpara and Gabe talk about the importance of a holistic approach to mental illness in children, approaches which may or may not include medication.
SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW
Guest information for ‘Children’s Mental Health’ Podcast Episode
Okpara Rice joined Tanager Place of Cedar Rapids, Io...
Source: World of Psychology - August 8, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Gabe Howard Tags: Children and Teens Mental Health and Wellness Relationships The Psych Central Show Treatment Source Type: blogs
ONC & CMS Proposed Rules – Part 6: Payer Data Requirements
Nikki Kent
Dave Levin
By DAVE LEVIN, MD and NIKKI KENT
The
Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) and the Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid (CMS) have proposed final rules on
interoperability, data blocking, and other activities as part of implementing
the 21st Century Cures Act. In this series, we will explore ideas
behind the rules, why they are necessary and the expected impact. Given that
these are complex and controversial topics are open to interpretation, we
invite readers to respond
with their own ideas, corrections and opinions.
Interventions to Address Market Failures
Many of the rules proposed
...
Source: The Health Care Blog - June 5, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Data Health Policy Health Technology CMS Dave Levin Health Data Interoperability Nikki Kent ONC Rules Sansoro Health Source Type: blogs
MedPAC ’s Latest Bad Idea: Forcing Doctors to Join ACOs
By KIP SULLIVAN, JD
At its April 4, 2019 meeting, the staff of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) asked the commission to discuss a very strange proposal: Doctors who treat patients enrolled in Medicare’s traditional fee-for-service (FFS) program must join an “accountable care organization” (ACO) or give up their FFS Medicare practice. (The staff may have meant to give hospitals the same Hobbesian choice, but that is not clear from the transcript of the meeting.) Here is how MedPAC staffer Eric Rollins laid out the proposal:
Here is how MedPAC staffer Eric Rollins laid out the proposal:
R...
Source: The Health Care Blog - April 22, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
The Next Frontier: Clinically Driven, Employer-Customized Care
Health systems and employers are bypassing insurers to deliver higher-quality, more affordable care
By MICHAEL J. ALKIRE
Employee health plan premiums are rising along with the total healthcare spending tab, spurring employers to rethink their benefits design strategy. Footing the tab, employers are becoming a more active and forceful driver in managing wellness, seeking healthcare partners that can keep their workforce healthy through affordable, convenient care.
Likewise, as
health systems assume accountability for the health of their communities, a
market has been born that is ripe for new partnerships betw...
Source: The Health Care Blog - April 10, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Economics The Business of Health Care direct-to-employer Employee Health Care Costs Health insurance Michael J. Alkire Source Type: blogs
Innovators Worth Watching: Hennepin Health ACO
By REBECCA FOGG
As U.S. providers continue their slow but steady march away from fee-for-service reimbursement and toward value-based payments, they’re increasingly seeking means of addressing patients’ health-related social needs. That’s because social determinants of health—life circumstances including socioeconomic status, housing, education, and employment—are estimated to have at least twice the impact on risk of premature death than health care. So addressing them is an important part of value-based strategies aiming to improve health while reducing health care costs.
Hennepin Health, a safety-net Acc...
Source: The Health Care Blog - April 4, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Hospitals Medical Practice Patients ACOs disruptive innovation Rebecca Fogg Social Determinants of Health Source Type: blogs
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As states have sought greater value in Medicaid, many have turned to comprehensive managed care plans to organize, deliver, and manage health care. States that contract with comprehensive managed care organizations must base their approach on written quality assessment and improvement strategies that, among other matters, address how they will use managed care to support and strengthen primary care. George Washington University’s Sara Rosenbaum and colleagues reviewed 36 of these strategies and present key themes, such as a shared focus on social determinants and advanced care coordination.
...
Source: The Commonwealth Fund: Blog - March 20, 2019 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Sara Rosenbaum, J. Zo ë Beckerman, Maria Velasquez, Alexander Somodevilla, Elizabeth Gray, Rebecca Morris, Morgan Handley Source Type: blogs
The Cruelty of Managed Medicare
By HANS DUVEFELT MD
Jeanette Brown had lost twenty pounds, and she was worried.
“I’m not trying,” she told me at her regular diabetes visit as I pored over her lab results. What I saw sent a chill down my spine:
A normal weight, diet controlled diabetic for many years, her glycosylated hemoglobin had jumped from 6.9 to 9.3 in three months while losing that much weight.
That is exactly what happened to my mother some years ago, before she was diagnosed with the pancreatic cancer that took her life in less than two years.
Jeanette had a normal physical exam and all her bloodwork except for the sugar num...
Source: The Health Care Blog - March 18, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Matthew Holt Tags: Health Policy Medicare Hans Duvefelt Managed Care Source Type: blogs
How Long?
People often ask me how long therapy should last. Usually I say it should last as long as it is working. And I often go on to say a lot more about that because no one can determine how long therapy goes on except a given patient and therapist working together to decide. Certainly managed care companies can't really know, though they can set arbitrary limits. I hate when site I liked disappears — today it is a site by Jean Hantman, someone I used to enjoy reading when there was an active listserv for psychoanalytic studies. She is on the psychoanalysis side of depth psychology, which means we have somewhat different not...
Source: Jung At Heart - March 17, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: blogs
The Revolving Door Spins Again: the Now Constant Coziness Between the Health Care Industry and US Government
Just because Washington DC is now crazy town does not mean the revolving door has stopped spinning. We have been dutifully accumulating cases, so it is time to present our latest update.I will divide this into two sections 1) the incoming revolving door, through which come people from the health care industry to enter US government positions in which they may influence health care regulation or policy relevant to their former positions; and 2) the outgoing revolving door, through which go people from US government positions in which they influenced health care regulation or policy to industry positions which were rel...
Source: Health Care Renewal - February 22, 2019 Category: Health Management Tags: DHHS Donald Trump FDA revolving doors Source Type: blogs
Obsessive Measurement Disorder: Etiology of an Epidemic
By KIP SULLIVAN JD
Review of The Tyranny of Metrics by Jerry Z. Muller, Princeton University Press, 2018
In the introduction to The Tyranny of Metrics, Jerry Muller urges readers to type “metrics” into Google’s Ngram, a program that searches through books and other material published over the last five centuries. He tells us we will find that the use of “metrics” soared after approximately 1985. I followed his instructions and confirmed his conclusion (see graph below). We see the same pattern for two other buzzwords that activate Muller’s BS antennae – “benchmarks,” and “performance indicators.” ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - February 13, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Data Benchmarks Book Review Jerry Z. Muller Kip Sullivan Metrics performance indicators The Tyranny of Metrics Source Type: blogs
How have your handled burnout in your career?
From"Burnout and Self Care: A Process In Helping"by David Papia, LCSW in The New Social Worker, Fall 2014"Our social work profession is noble. This is a very special career path. We get to participate in important matters in people ’s lives. We learn about ourselves, about others, and about humanity. We engage in giving and receiving, and we engage in relationships that further who we are and further those to whom we attend. However, our profession comes with many significant challenges and occupational hazards that threaten to weaken our profession and the resolve of the professional social worker. &nbs...
Source: Markham's Behavioral Health - January 24, 2019 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: David G. Markham Source Type: blogs
