February 9th, 2011 by KevinMD in Health Policy, Opinion
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Health reformers propose the proliferation of integrated health systems, like the Mayo Clinic or Kaiser Permanente, which, according to the Dartmouth Atlas, lead to better patient care and improved cost control.
To that end, accountable care organizations (ACOs) have been a major part of health reform, changing the way healthcare is delivered. Never mind that patients may not be receptive to the new model, but the creation of these large, integrated physician-hospital entities that progressive policy experts espouse comes with repercussions. Monopoly power.
To prepare for the new model of healthcare delivery, physician practices have been consolidating. In many cases, they’re being bought by hospitals. Last year, I wrote how this is leading to the death of the private practice physician.
But with consolidation comes a tilt in market power. Health insurers, desperate to control costs, are finding it more difficult to negotiate with hospital-physician practices that dominate a market. And patients are going to side with the hospital — insurers that leave out popular doctors and medical facilities face a backlash from patients. Witness the power that Partners Healthcare has in the Boston market that’s mostly driven by patient demand for big-reputation, high-cost Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*
August 23rd, 2010 by StevenWilkinsMPH in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion, Research
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Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) figure prominently in the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). The concept behind ACOs is that by tying both physician and hospital compensation to outcomes via a bundled fee (say for pneumonia) we can expect to see an improvement in quality and value.
In principal, accountable care makes a lot of sense. Practicality speaking, however, doctors and hospitals must address a huge challenge before they can expect benefit financially. Before doctors can be held accountable for the care they deliver, they must first be held accountable for the quality of their communication with patients.
Take hospital readmissions, which are a big healthcare cost driver today. According to a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine, 20 percent of all Medicare patients discharged from hospitals were readmitted within 30 days, and 34 percent percent within 90 days. The Joint Commission and others rightly believe that inadequate communication between physicians — as well as between physicians and patients — is a major contributing factor. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Mind The Gap*
August 16th, 2010 by BobDoherty in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Research
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Yes, according to a study in today’s Health Affairs. (The full text of the study is available only to subscribers, but Kaiser Health News Daily has a good summary of its findings and links to other news reports.)
The study compares inpatient death rates and lengths of stay for patients with congestive heart failure or acute myocardial infarction when provided by U.S. citizens trained abroad, citizens trained in the United States, and non-citizens trained abroad. Treatment was provided by internists, family physicians, or cardiologists. The differences were striking, according to the authors:
“Our analysis of 244,153 hospitalizations in Pennsylvania found that patients of doctors who graduated from international medical schools and were not U.S. citizens at the time they entered medical school had significantly lower mortality rates than patients cared for by doctors who graduated from U.S. medical schools or who were U.S. citizens and received their degrees abroad.”
Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The ACP Advocate Blog by Bob Doherty*