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The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission is exploring the idea of Medicare designing a supplemental or Medigap plan for seniors that would promote their use of an accountable care organization.
Doctors are told that the value-based care model will allow them to foster closer relationships with their patients, have greater access to clinical and pricing data and let them see fewer patients but earn more money but they are leery of the model.
Wall Street is not expecting the type of robust enrollment in insurance exchanges that the Congressional Budget Office has predicted, but some investors are expecting federal policy changes that expose insurers to more risk.
Hospital administrators are saying recent recommendations from the Office of Inspector General regarding critical access hospital certification will result in hospital closures.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has awarded $67 million in Affordable Care Act funds to support community health centers, including $19 million to establish 32 new healthcare delivery sites.
The hospice community sees benefit in increased Medicare surveys of its facilities as an opportunity to improve their operations and to demonstrate to the public that they meet requirements.Currently, hospice surveys are many years apart.
Being surveyed to participate in the Medicare program is usually seen as an onerous task by most healthcare facilities, but the hospice community wants to be surveyed more frequently, even if the cost of those surveys comes out of its own pocket.
It is becoming clearer that it will take time, strategy and investment for accountable care organizations to hit their anticipated mark. During the summer, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reported that all 32 Pioneer ACOs had improved quality of care for its participants, but only 13 were able to lower the cost of that care enough to share in the savings.
Hospitals that utilize mobile health vans will tell anyone that bringing needed services to people in underserved areas improves population health, but with accountability and cost effectiveness increasingly important, there is a need to understand the potential financial return on this kind of service.
In this age of dwindling resources and competing priorities, nutrition research holds the key to increasing our understanding of the causes of obesity and its related co-morbidities and holds promise to markedly influence global health and economies.