December 29th, 2011 by BobDoherty in Health Policy, News
Tags: ACP, Bill, Congress, Government, Insurance, Medicare, Pay Cut, Payments, Payroll, President Obama, Senate, Speaker of the House, Tax Break, Unemployment Benefits
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Last week, Speaker Boehner announced that the House and Senate have agreed on a two month extension of current Medicare payment rates, the payroll tax cut, and unemployment benefits.
My understanding is that the agreement has the House accepting the Senate’s proposal to extend the payroll tax break, unemployment insurance benefits, and current Medicare payment rates through the end of February, along with an agreement with the Senate to appoint a House-Senate conference committee to begin negotiations on a longer-term extension. It remains unclear exactly when the votes in the House and Senate will take place, and at least in the Senate, it will require unanimous consent by all Senators. If it passes both the House and Senate, Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The ACP Advocate Blog by Bob Doherty*
December 28th, 2011 by Happy Hospitalist in Health Policy, Research
Tags: Hospitalist, RVU
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For centuries, physician practices have been small business enterprises built on the sweat equity of intensive medical training. It was an economic reward system that often had physicians sacrificing family life for patient care. It continues today as the foundation of fee for service. We know it as the eat what you kill model of health care.
In the last ten years, physician practices have seen a dramatic shift from independent business practices to hospital owned practices. With that shift has come a titanic move toward the salary vs productivity compensation model.
Is this a good thing? Is a salaried physician better than a productivity based physician? That question can’t be answered because good depends on which part of the medical industrial complex you belong to and what you consider good.
As a physician, the answer on whether to become a salaried vs productivity based physician can only be answered after one defines what they value most. We know, across the board, that physicians who work in a 100% productivity model earn Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Happy Hospitalist*
December 27th, 2011 by GruntDoc in Health Policy, Opinion
Tags: Expenditure, Health Insurance, Hole, medicaid, Medicare, NEJM, New England Journal of Medicine, Percentage, Physician Payment, Policy, SGR, Specialities, Sustainable Growth Rate, Washington Post, Wonkblog
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This article and its graph (from the NEJM), and its interesting, informative but probably useless graph, was referenced today on twitter, via the Washington Post’s Wonkblog,
Recently, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services announced a scheduled cut in Medicare physician fees of 27.4% for 2012. This cut stems from the sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula used by the physician-payment system. …
To illustrate the level of inequity in this system, we broke down the national spending for Medicare physician services by state and by specialty and determined which states and specialties have contributed most to the SGR deficit between 2002, when the program was last balanced, and 2009. Although SGR spending targets are set on a national level, we computed state targets by applying the SGR’s national target growth rate to each state’s per capita expenditure, using 2002 as the base year. Our analysis is an approximation, because, unlike the SGR, we do not adjust for differential fee changes. …
We compared the state targets for the years 2003 to 2009 to actual state expenditures and added the annual difference between these figures to get a cumulative difference between the state’s spending and the SGR target. This cumulative difference was Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*
December 27th, 2011 by BarbaraFicarraRN in Health Policy, Opinion
Tags: Accountable Care Organizations, Adults, Cloud Computing, Doctors, Gaming, Health, health care, Health IT, HIMSS, Hospital Care, Insurance, mHealth, Microsoft, Mobile Apps, Mobile Health, Mobile Technology, Nurses, Patient Engagement, remote monitoring, Seniors, Social Networking, Telehealth, Telemedicine, Women's Health, Young Adults
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Bill Crounse, MD, Senior Director, Worldwide Health, Worldwide Public Sector Microsoft Corporation shares his insights and describes four leading trends and technologies that will transform health and health care in 2012 and beyond.
These leading technologies include: cloud computing, health gaming, telehealth services and remote monitoring/mobile health.
Telehealth, Remote Monitoring, Mobile Health
I’d like to focus on telehealth and remote monitoring/mobile health since I feel telehealth is the nucleus of patient care, and telehealth can help reduce health care costs, and improve quality health care for patients. Telehealth technology combined mobile technology such as smartphones will make monitoring patients conditions easier and more efficient, and “cheaper and more scalable.”
Patient Quality Health Care
Through the Accountable Care Organizational Model (ACO), the core concept is to Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Health in 30*
December 27th, 2011 by Stanley Feld, M.D. in Health Policy, Opinion
Tags: Benefits, Healthcare Insurance Industry, Healthcare System, Incentives, Insurance Companies, Marketplace, medicaid, Medical Care System, Medicare, Obamacare, Stakeholders, Vested Interests
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The difference between the healthcare system and the medical care system is very clear to me. The stakeholders in the healthcare system are patients, physicians, government, hospital systems, pharmaceutical companies, pharmacies, pharmacy middlemen, and healthcare insurance companies.
Government, hospital systems, pharmaceutical companies, pharmacies, pharmacy middlemen, and healthcare insurance companies are secondary stakeholders in the healthcare system.
The primary stakeholders are patients and physicians. They also comprise the medical care system. Without the primary stakeholders there would be no need for a healthcare system.
The secondary stakeholders have long ago taken over the healthcare system. All businesses and the government deal with the hand they are dealt using their best judgment. The people running the business or government pursue their vested interest. The difference between businesses and government is businesses work to make as big a profit as possible. Government, depending on the political party in power, pursues fulfillment of its ideology.
Since 1942 and the Economic Stabilization Act of President Roosevelt Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Repairing the Healthcare System*
