By John Halamka MD – After my previous post about my suggested path forward for Meaningful Use, I received a large number of comments. I thought it would be useful to summarize them and clarify some of my opinions. In general, 95% of commenters agreed that CMS should pivot the concept of Meaningful Use functional requirements into pay for performance rewards for achieving outcomes via MACRA.
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By Michelle Andrews – In addition to treating what ails you, a number of health care systems aim to sell you a health insurance plan to pay for it. With some of the most competitively priced policies on the marketplaces, “provider-led” plans can be popular with consumers.
By William Hyman – Recently I addressed here the issue of physicians having to use certain functions of their EHR even if they didn’t need those functions to accomplish the desired outcome. Notably, it is required under Meaningful Use to have certain prompts occur whether or not those prompts are necessary.
By Jitin Asnaani – Many health IT industry experts have compared the evolution of health care interoperability to the banking industry, particularly in regards to the ATM network. Did you know that it took more than 50 years for Universal ATM access to be established from the time the first ATM was invented in 1939?
By Julie Appleby – UnitedHealthcare said it will expand its high-profile test of whether bundled payments for chemotherapy can help slow rising cancer treatment costs, part of a growing effort by insurers to find new ways to pay for care.
By Art Gross – A recent study by the Ponemon Institute calculated the cost of a healthcare related data breach to be $363 per record. This was the highest amount across all industries. A financial data breach cost $215 per record and a retail data breach cost $165 per record.
By Don Michaels, PhD – The shift from fee-for-service to value-based care may be moving slowly, but there’s little doubt that the change is inevitable. According to a recent survey by PwC, alternative incentive based payment models like bundles and capitation currently make up a small percentage of payments.
By John Halamka MD – My assessment of the current Meaningful Use program and a proposal to better serve the needs of stakeholders. I’m likely going to violate many rules with this post. First, it’s over 1500 words, which is not ideal for social media. Second, there are many who will find my conclusions politically unpopular. I’m not criticizing people, I’m just commenting on ideas.
By Anna Gorman – California and the federal government agreed in concept Saturday on a $6.2-billion deal to reform the Medicaid program and to help pay for care of the low-income population. The largest share of the funds – nearly $3.3 billion – is aimed at helping public hospitals improve the safety and quality of patient care.