April 20th, 2011 by Stanley Feld, M.D. in Health Policy, Opinion
No Comments »
In 2009 President Obama stated that Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) were going to be pilot programs in real world settings. The goal was to see if they effective in reducing costs and increasing “quality of care.” The results of the pilot programs have not been published.
Last week despite the lack of proof of concept HHS and CMS announced new proposed regulations for ACOs.
The new delivery and payment model the agency estimates could serve up to 5 million Medicare beneficiaries through participating providers, and also potentially save the Medicare program as much as $960 million over three years.
How were these estimates derived? It could be another accounting trick by President Obama’s administration.
The idea of coordinating care and developing systems of care is a great idea theoretically. From a practical standpoint, execution is very difficult.
I tried to execute something similar in 1996 with the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists; a national Independent Practice Association. AACECare received little cooperation or interest from Clinical Endocrinologists.
The problem is coordinated medical care is dependent on physicians cooperating and not competing with each other. It also depends on hospital systems developing an equitable partnership with physicians.
The equitable partnerships between hospital systems and physicians are difficult to achieve if past results are any indication of future results. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Repairing the Healthcare System*
April 20th, 2011 by DrRich in Health Policy, Opinion
No Comments »
For some time now, numerous loved ones and dear friends have been advising and occasionally urging DrRich that, perhaps, it has become a bit inappropriate, and even unseemly, for him to continue in his longtime position as President and sole member of Future Old Farts of America (FOFA). For a not unsubstantial interval DrRich ignored this advice, feigning incipient deafness. But finally, after some focused study of that which these days returns his gaze in the mirror, and reluctantly concluding that maybe his loved ones have a point (and not wishing to seem Cranky), DrRich has reluctantly decided to resign from (and therefore disband) FOFA.
DrRich is pleased to announce that he has accepted a new position as President and sole member of Glorious Old Farts of America (GOFA).
And it is in this new capacity that DrRich has become alarmed at some of the dire warnings now being sounded by respected leaders of the Democratic Party, to the effect that the Republicans’ proposed federal budget for fiscal year 2012, released last week by Congressman Paul Ryan (who serves, DrRich believes, as Deputy Whippersnapper of the House Republican caucus), proves that Republicans are trying to kill old people. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Covert Rationing Blog*
April 8th, 2011 by Glenn Laffel, M.D., Ph.D. in Health Policy, Opinion
No Comments »
One of the great challenges facing the folks who have been tasked to implement the Big O’s health care law is defining “essential benefits,” the core medical services that insurers must cover.
Despite its voluminous nature, the law is remarkably vague in this regard. It does identify 10 care categories that health plans must provide to consumers who use federally-funded health insurance exchanges to select a plan, but the categories and associated lists aren’t comprehensive or specific (the categories appear at the end of this post).
The Institute of Medicine has been tasked to flesh out the lists of required services. It has begun work amid a frenzy of lobbying by private insurers and consumer groups. Habilitative services are one contentious area, and they illustrate the challenges faced by the IOM. Unlike rehabilitative services which help people recover lost skills, habilitative services help them acquire new ones.
Habilitative services can help autistic children improve language skills, or those with cerebral palsy learn to walk. They can also help a person with schizophrenia improve his social skills. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Pizaazz*
April 7th, 2011 by Toni Brayer, M.D. in Health Policy, Opinion
No Comments »
I am all for any proposal that will improve heath care in America. Improvement means controlling costs, covering all Americans so no one has to worry about going bankrupt to pay for health care. Improvement means access to quality care without having to worry about losing your job, which means losing your coverage. Improvement means a system where all incentives are aligned to prevent disease, rather than using expensive technologies and hospitals to treat disease after the fact. Any proposal that gets us there has my vote.
In the GOP “Path to Prosperity” budget for 2012, they propose a few things that are good and a few big things that are bad…really really bad. First the good. Capping the medical malpractice lawsuits for “pain and suffering” would be a huge step forward. Patients should be compensated for medical errors but the “hit the lottery” windfalls for pain and suffering are costly drivers that make no sense. There is no place in the world, besides the USA, that has such onerous medical malpractice lawsuits. And they drive up cost for everyone. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*
April 2nd, 2011 by DrWes in Health Policy, Opinion
1 Comment »
Cardiologists in Connecticut are standing up to the lack of liability protection in the state’s new low-income health plan called SustiNet:
The SustiNet program would create large pools of people, including those who can’t currently afford health insurance, that would theoretically drive down premium costs by competing with the plans of private insurers. Among other cost savings, it would designate a single doctor or practice for each patient, to reduce emergency care use, and create new “best-use” procedures for a variety of ailments to reduce the number of tests doctors order.
But a key provision of the plan was that doctors, in return for following the new procedures and ordering fewer tests, would be protected from malpractice suits if the outcome of a case was not favorable for the patient. However, with backing from the Connecticut Trial Lawyers Association, that provision was removed from the SustiNet bill two weeks ago.
Cardiologists are considered a particularly important group for the new best-use procedures because they tend to order a battery of expensive tests when patients show signs of heart trouble. If specialists like them failed to participate in the SustiNet program, cutting medical costs could be more difficult.
On Tuesday, the Connecticut chapter of the American College of Cardiology withdrew its support for the bill and said that it would circulate an open letter to House Speaker Christopher G. Donovan and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy saying that it could not support the bill without the malpractice protection.
As screws continue to get tightened on doctors’ ability to order tests thanks to third-party oversight bodies, look for more physicians to play hardball about liability limits at both the state AND national levels.
Doctors are being forced to do do their part to control health care costs as a result of our increasingly government-controlled health care initiatives. It’s high time for the trial lawyers’ to do the same. And there’s already precedent to doing so: just look to the legal protections military doctors enjoy when caring for their members. While legal recourse still exists in the military, the challenge of suing the government on behalf of their employees thwarts frivolous claims.
-WesMusings of a cardiologist and cardiac electrophysiologist.
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
