The Medicare Shared Savings [ACO] Program Class of 2014: To Submit, or Not to Submit?

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH Thinking about submitting for participation in the ‘statutory’ Medicare Shared Savings (MSSP) vs. Pioneer, or Advanced payment model ACO programs? While there is certain overlap and confusion, stay tuned for CMS to clarify both in nuance terms and well as key operational indicia. By and large my understanding is this …

Time for a New ‘IPA’? The Independent Patient Association

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH For some ‘IPA‘ is about conversation and spirit enabled conviviality often in micro-breweries scanning the daily options for consumption. While for others IPA conjures up images and memories of labored if not painful efforts to steward the phased transformation of the American healthcare [non]system from a production oriented fee-for-services silo …

So What’s with the [ACO] Bundled Payment Thing?

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH It’s interesting to note the more ‘things change’, the more they ‘[seem] to stay the same?’ Let me explain…. In a recent observation by Rob Lazerow featured in the post ‘How Are ACOs Doing‘ the Advisory Board Senior Consultant dubs 2013 as the ‘year of accountable care’. He then goes …

Some Context and Perspective on Standing Up the ACO

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH I am passionate and write a fair amount about health reform, innovation in business models and the pursuit of a ‘sustainable healthcare ecosystem’ as I’ve been intimately involved in serial efforts to restrain the appetite of a change resistant industry that Shannon Brownlee aptly frames in Escape Fire the hard …

Are Institutionally Led ACOs ‘DOA’? I Say Heck Yah!

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH At the end of the [business model and strategic positioning] day, it’s all about the intangible but mission critical ‘C’ word, i.e., culture, and whether two traditionally oppositional styles (physician v. hospital) can mash-up and ‘meaningfully integrate’ (clinically, legally & workflow wise) where previous attempts during the 80s and 90s …

This Week in Accountable Care with Aetna Strategist Charles Saunders MD

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH On the broadcast I chat with Charles Saunders MD, CEO of Emerging Businesses at Aetna. Dr. Saunder’s seat in the house of healthcare innovation is a unique perch and his tenure in the business brings both depth and breadth to fundamental questions we face as a collective industry. A fountain …

HiMSS 2013 Accountable Care Organization RoundUp: Monday March 3rd

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH We’re only 8 days out from the HiMSS bash in the ‘big easy’ aka ‘NOLA’. We’ve been so engaged in planning the Health Innovation Broadcast Consortium aka @HIBCtv coverage it’s been a challenge to stay on top and share the more worthwhile developments in the ACO space. So lets detail some …

The National Association of ACOs Emerges

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH We’re only 8 days out from the HiMSS bash in the ‘big easy’ aka ‘NOLA’. We’ve been so engaged in planning the Health Innovation Broadcast Consortium aka @HIBCtv it’s been a challenge to stay on top and share the more worthwhile developments in the ACO space. Perhaps of most immediate interest …