A Gentle Appeal to Healthcare Social Media Thought Leadership

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH It takes courage to live a life of consistent integrity. Owning the occasional ‘wreckage of one’s presence’ (you know when things don’t go your way or as planned) can at times be an emotional and intellectual stretch. After all, we do live in a society that often embraces the transfer …

The Incidence of ACOs: The Leavitt Report

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH We’re seeing a flurry of reports on ACOs quoting the Leavitt Partners report ‘Growth and Dispersion of Accountable Care Organizations‘ published last year, see previous post for access here. Meanwhile we chatted with report authors Andrew Croshaw and Thomas Merrill who provided additional context and insight into their findings on …

DC Health Innovation Week: A ‘Triple Aim’ Love In or More Silo’s In the Making?

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH As we trudge forward into various iterations of what and how ‘accountable care’ strategies can be sensibly configured and locally seeded for Medicare, Medicaid as well as commercial markets, attention is often focused on the ‘necessary’ but ‘not sufficient’ contribution(s) from health information technology (HIT). It is rare that a …

The Medicare Shared Savings vs. Pioneer ACOs

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH During the ‘risk download days’, i.e., from health plan to physician groups or networks and institutional health systems or hospital partners, whether via global percent of premium, or budget driven PMPM contracts, some of us used to joke that using healthcare actuarial data to manage forward clinical risk was like …

Health Reform Readiness Infographic

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH We all love infographics, right? This one caught my eye today. Kind of a clever snapshot of the crap shoot we’re in relative to the legal and political uncertainty festering in the US today. The original graphic is courtesy of @HITconsultant via his blog here. Whether this captures the essence …

First Round of CMMI Innovation Grants Announced

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH CMS has disclosed the recipients of the innovation grants this morning. Read their profiles below, from ‘Camp Courage to the Regents of the University of California’ representing an eclectic mix of coast-to-coast academic plays, system lead and entrepreneurial initiatives): BETH ISRAEL DEACONESS Project Title: “Preventing avoidable re-hospitalizations: Post-Acute Care Transition Program …

CMS Innovation Center announcement supporting health care innovation

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH Looks like we’ll get the results of the first round of innovation grants funded via the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. Rumor has it that there will be a 2nd round of grant funding. I assume we’ll minimally hear about round 1 awards, and perhaps more. Detail via CMMI …

Feel for the enforcers: Shades of Maytag Repair Man?

By Vince Kuraitis This post originally appeared at eCare Management Blog. One of the biggest concerns about ACOs has been their potential to enable market consolidation – that by uniting health care providers the ACO gains market clout and ability to charge higher prices. While this is a legitimate concern about ACOs, so far it’s not playing out. …

Inside ‘accountable care’, challenges to the ACO

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH We hear considerable chatter on both sides of the ACO or ‘AC/e’ for accountable care focused enterprise absent the organizational drama of fielding an entity per se with the right structural roots or cultural ‘DNA’. Yet, as someone with principal leadership immersion both setting up and managing the ACO ancestry …

Medicaid and HITECH Conference: Fourth Annual

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH From the CMS. Originally posted here. To view the live conference video streaming feed, including accessing the agenda and related conference materials and handouts, click here. Please join the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) as we host a three-day conference for State Medicaid agencies, and other Federal and …