Posted on January 6th, 2012 by Frank Fortin
The Group Insurance Commission this week began notifying physicians about their tier designations for the 2012-2013 benefit year. We encourage physicians to review this information immediately and contact each of the health plans if they have questions or want to appeal their tier designation. The deadline to file an appeal of your designation is January [...]
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Posted on September 22nd, 2011 by Frank Fortin
By Bruce Auerbach, MD Past President, Massachusetts Medical Society In 2008, as I began my one-year term as president of the Massachusetts Medical Society, the MMS and five physicians filed suit against the Massachusetts Group Insurance Commission (GIC), and two health insurers, Tufts Health Plan and Unicare, over the state program that rates (or “tiers”) [...]
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Posted on January 12th, 2011 by Frank Fortin
Physicians have begun receiving their 2011-2012 tier designations from the six health plans contracting with the state Group Insurance Commission. The MMS encourages physicians to review this information immediately and to contact health plans promptly if they have questions or want to appeal their tier designation. The deadline to request an appeal is January 26. [...]
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Posted on July 19th, 2010 by Frank Fortin
Today, the American Medical Association, the MMS, and our colleagues in 46 other state medical societies delivered a letter to health insurance plans across the country, calling on them reevaluate the programs they’re using to profile physicians’ performance. We want the insurers to demonstrate that their programs are accurate, valid and reliable. The letter follows [...]
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Posted on December 21st, 2009 by Frank Fortin
Massachusetts physicians should watch their mail next month for information from the six health plans that participate in the Group Insurance Commission. We expect that the plans will release next year’s individual tier designations early in January. Review these mailings right away. They will include general information about your profile and the tiers into which [...]
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Posted on April 8th, 2009 by Frank Fortin
Dr. Jerome Groopman, the Boston physician who has written bestsellers and writes for the New Yorker, writes a scathing indictment with Dr. Pamela Hartzband on the pitfalls of current pay for performance programs in today's edition of the Wall Street Journal. This section of the article on the GIC's tiering program is priceless: "Too often [...]
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Posted on April 2nd, 2009 by Frank Fortin
We learned today that a Superior Court judge has upheld six separate claims in the litigation filed by the MMS and five physicians against the Group Insurance Commission's physician tiering program. The court dismissed four other claims, but two of the most important claims (defamation and consumer protection) were upheld. The MMS news release on [...]
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Posted on April 1st, 2009 by Frank Fortin
Dr. Sally Ginsburg, pediatrician from Longmeadow, has written an amazing post on the absurdities of the Group Insurance Commission's physician tiering program. It's on WBUR's "CommonHealth" blog. We heartily recommend a close, careful reading of her points. She agrees that health care must be delivered more efficiently and that quality must be improved. But she [...]
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Posted on February 19th, 2009 by Frank Fortin
Health plans that contract with the Group Insurance Commission have begun to release their tier designations for 2009-2010. So far, we know about three health plans who released their tiering designations: Unicare, Tufts and Neighborhood Health Plans. Physicians have a very limited time period to appeal their tier designations. The Massachusetts Medical Society has posted [...]
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Posted on December 5th, 2008 by Frank Fortin
CBS News aired a terrific story last night on the problems with physician tiering programs. It articulates many of the concerns the Massachusetts Medical Society has been expressing for years. (Unfortunately, CBS subjects you to a 15-second or 30-second advertisement at the beginning. The story follows immediately afterwards.)
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