Posted on May 9th, 2012 by Frank Fortin
By Lynda M. Young, MD MMS President With the release of the Senate bill today, we now have two detailed legislative approaches to payment reform, along with the Governor’s legislation from last year. We recognize the need to bend the cost curve in Massachusetts, and we will continue to work with the House, the Senate [...]
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Posted on May 4th, 2012 by Frank Fortin
The Massachusetts House Friday released a comprehensive payment reform bill that seeks the cut $160 billion in health care spending in Massachusetts over the next 15 years. House Speaker Robert DeLeo characterized the bill as an effort to balance the need to cut health care costs for employers and families with a desire to keep [...]
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Posted on March 29th, 2012 by Frank Fortin
In an age where the federal government has settled on a total of 33 quality metrics in its final rule for accountable care organizations, figuring out how to track data and meet quality and performance benchmarks is becoming a critical part of a physician’s role in providing quality care to patients. More practices in Massachusetts [...]
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Posted on November 7th, 2011 by Erica Noonan
The new world of Accountable Care Organizations will focus on performance measurement, new payment models, and patient-doctor cooperation, according to Dartmouth Medical School professor Elliott S. Fisher, MD, MPH. Dr. Fisher said ACOs are expected to dramatically shift old paradigms of health care. “It’s not just a contract, but a journey. It’s not us versus [...]
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Posted on November 1st, 2011 by Erica Noonan
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley on Monday called on the state’s physicians to become more involved in shaping major health care reform initiatives on the horizon. Physician leadership and input is crucial to efforts to successfully implement new practice models, she said, such as accountable care organizations. “You can make a difference when you come [...]
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Posted on September 20th, 2011 by Frank Fortin
“One size doesn’t fit all.” Last week, during the MMS’ education program “A Path to Accountable Care Organizations: How Do We Get There From Here,” that concept for payment reform and ACO development was echoed repeatedly by several speakers. The new paradigm that is emerging requires physicians and hospitals to cooperate and work together, taking [...]
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Posted on August 18th, 2011 by Frank Fortin
In the recent New England Journal of Medicine article Launching Accountable Care Organizations- The Proposed Rule for the Medicare Shared Savings Program, Dr. Donald Berwick noted that “a critical foundation of the proposed rule (on ACOs) is an unwavering focus on patients.” The best way to focus on patients is to ensure that decisions are [...]
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Posted on August 4th, 2011 by Frank Fortin
Recently, some physicians and health care administrators have expressed doubts about the viability of accountable care organizations (ACOs). Does this viewpoint stand up to scrutiny? If you’re talking about the Medicare ACO program, as proposed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services this past spring, the naysayers probably have a point. The proposed regulations [...]
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Posted on July 26th, 2011 by Frank Fortin
The term Accountable Care Organization (ACO) seems to be everywhere these days. It’s hard to pick up a health care journal, newsletter or newspaper that does not contain at least one reference to ACOs. The one consistent thread is that ACOs are organizations of health care providers that agree to be accountable for the quality, [...]
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Posted on July 7th, 2011 by Frank Fortin
By Lynda Young, MD, MMS President During four days of public hearings last week, the Division of Health Care Finance and Policy heard providers, payers, researchers, and members of the public explain, under oath, what they think drives health care cost growth in Massachusetts and how provider prices affect insurance premiums. Day one focused on [...]
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