by Ashish K. Jha Last week, CMS sent out press releases touting over $1 billion in savings from Accountable Care Organizations. Here’s the tweet from Andy Slavitt, the acting Administrator of CMS: Andy Slavitt ✔@ASlavitt NEW ACO RESULTS: physicians are changing care, w better results for patients & are saving money. Over $1B. https://www.cms.gov/Newsroom/MediaReleaseDatabase/Press-releases/2016-Press-releases-items/2016-08-25.html … 1:32 PM – …
Author Archives: Admin
The Long and Winding Road to Healthcare Price Transparency
by Gregg A. Masters, MPH When Steven Brill published ‘Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us‘ in 2013 he brought national attention via a series of personal stories that served to reveal the complex dysfunction inherent in our healthcare delivery and financing system. A veritable ‘conundrum‘ created over the decades of layering managed care …
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Day One: You’re Covered!
by Gregg A. Masters, MPH August 1st, 2016 marked the first day that I’ve been covered by health insurance since leaving the W2 workforce in 2000 as Vice President of Payor and Provider Contracting at Wellspan Health Network a ‘Super PHO’ launched by Texas Health Resources, post combination of Presbyterian Healthcare System, Harris Methodist Health Services …
Those Failing CO-OPs: Implications for the ACA and its ACO Workhorse
by Gregg A. Masters, MPH As the battle for the hearts and minds of Americans relative to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) continues, and the tracking sentiment index waxes and wanes between ‘favorable’ and ‘unfavorable’ one front in particular seems to have a fair degree of utility with the narrative profferred by the ‘repeal and replace‘ crowd. …
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POTUS: The De Facto Health Wonk-in-Chief of the US?
by Gregg A. Masters, MPH Love him or hate him President Barack Obama continues to demonstrate depth, insight, tenacity and a firm grip on the state of the U.S. Healthcare ecosystem dysfunction (and remedies) well beyond his formal training as a Constitutional scholar. Now as arguably one of the most legislatively accomplished President’s in …
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The 2016 Medicare Trustees Report: One year closer to IPAB cuts?
by Gregg A. Masters, MPH From the relentless drone of ‘where are the jobs, Mr. President?’ to the misguided fear mongering of ‘death panels for Grandma’ administered by un-elected, faceless bureaucrats to the de facto death of American Democracy itself the attacks on the Affordable Care Act (ACA), flawed indeed as it is, is starting to log results, some …
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MACRA, MIPS and APMs: A Report from CAPG
by Gregg A. Masters, MPH So everyone is talking about value based healthcare. No longer is ‘business as usual‘ even an option on the table as the volume driven FFS zeitgeist continues to lose supporters in health policy circles while a growing body of clinical initiatives from ACOs to a range of variably structured and …
Final Medicare Shared Savings Program Rule (CMS-1644-F)
by Gregg A. Masters, MPH Creating consistent high quality original content is hard. At ACO Watch, we’re not in the business of breaking news or high frequency posts to drive eyeballs and traffic to this blog so ‘the numbers’ that might attract advertising or sponsorship (there aren’t any). Instead we (mostly me) watch the developments …
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Blab the Blockchain: Healthcare Implications?
by Gregg A. Masters, MPH Yesterday, April 27th 2016 I joined twitter colleagues and principal co-moderators and my ‘go-to Blab experts James Legan, MD (@jimmie_vanagon) and Charles “Chuck” Webster, MD (@wareflo) for a ‘Blab‘ on ‘blockchain implications in the heathcare space‘ (both delivery and finance). Our featured expert du jour Jeff Brandt was a no-show, so we …
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Hey, Remember IPAs, PPOs and TPAs?
by Gregg A. Masters, MPH In a last man standing of sorts in what some may call the legacy and aging infrastructure of the ‘vote with your feet‘ PPO industry including it’s allies in the TPA (Third Party Administrator) space, the American Association of Payors, Administrators and Networks (AAPAN) is holding its 2016 Annual Forum …
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