Tag Archives: value-based care

Webcast to focus on the value of ‘value-based’ care

In a blog post last summer, we asked what appeared to be a simple question: Is value-based care a fad? It turns out that while the question may be simple, the answer is a bit more complicated.

After the blog post ran, we heard from the Dell Medical School at the University of Texas, Austin. The school has a department devoted to teaching value-based care to its medical students. AHCJ will host a webcast at noon ET on Tuesday, June 25, for members featuring two of the school’s professors — Elizabeth Teisberg, Ph.D., and Scott Wallace — who will answer questions about value-based care and explain what students in this program are learning. Continue reading

Is value-based health care a fad?

Photo: Robert Geiger via Flickr

There’s no doubt that the health system needs new payment models to replace the aging fee-for-service (FFS) method criticized for providing incentives for physicians to do more procedures, prescribe more drugs, and see more patients more frequently.

Among efforts to control costs and improve patient outcomes, health insurers and health systems have been shifting from the FFS model, which drives volume, to a payment model that rewards value. They hope value-based payment will help keep costs down while improving patient outcomes. Health system marketers call it better care at lower cost. Continue reading

Mergers may transform health care as insurers encourage moving patients into lower cost sites of care

Photo: Mike Mozart via Flickr

For decades, those who pay for health care have urged providers to move patients out of hospitals into lower cost settings such as home care and doctors’ offices.

That trend is accelerating today as seen in recent mergers involving insurers, pharmacies and providers. Continue reading

MACRA: A look at the final rule on physician quality payments and EHR transition

The federal government released its final rule for 2018 on a law that governs physicians’ adoption of electronic health records and rewards them for meeting quality measures when treating Medicare patients.

However, the final rule includes some changes that mean that fewer physicians will be required to participate. One prominent physician group said that the rule will slow the transition to value-based care. Continue reading

What could happen to Medicaid innovation under a repeal scenario?

Photo: ILO via Flickr

Now that Senate Republicans have delayed action on their Obamacare “repeal and replace” bill until after the Independence Day recess, let’s take a moment to talk about innovation.

One underlying objective of the Affordable Care Act was to spur adoption of value-based care and technology-driven care coordination – in tandem with providing free preventive care. Continue reading