Monitoring the birth of an industry
By Gregg A. Masters, MPH An excellent ‘tutorial’ of sorts on the Medicare program is provided by Tom Scully, former Bush era (2001-2004) administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, who opines on the Medicare and Medicaid Acts of 1965. He discusses President Lyndon Bain Johnson’s vision of the bill and looks at …
Continue reading “Tom Scully Tutorial & Diagnosis of Medicare Program”
By Gregg A. Masters, MPH The old is new again… I’ve been writing and tweeting about this theme for some time now. It was aptly offered as contextual insight via Nicole Bradberry of MZI Healthcare /Orange Solutions and CEO of the Florida Association of ACOs. Many have similarly echoed this ‘deja vu’ theme when discussing the roll-out …
Continue reading “‘Fear and Trembling’ or Simply ‘Lonely in’ Seattle?”
By Gregg A. Masters, MPH Per the recent investor call [to listen via archive replay click (and register) here] the theme was perhaps best set via the following comment: We just want to stop the bleeding… Robert Waegelein When CMS issued the final rule for ACOs one of the first enterprising companies out of the gate …
Continue reading “Universal American: A Sign of Things to Come?”
Why Clinical Integration is Essential for the Future of Independent Physicians Guest post by Ben Humphrey, MD, CPE, MGO Healthcare Consulting (1,2,3) We’re past the tipping point and are proceeding headlong into new market-driven accountability for quality, cost and value. As these large-scale changes progress, physicians who want to thrive and be positioned for long-term …
Continue reading “Healthcare Change is Not Coming. Healthcare has Changed!”
By Gregg A. Masters, MPH The clock is ticking and the CMS continues its community outreach via their series of National Provider Calls on the application process for ACOs interested in submitting for the Medicare Shared Savings Program. The deadline for the class of 2015 is approaching with the next call scheduled for Tuesday, April …
Continue reading “The Medicare Shared Savings Program: Class of 2015”
By Gregg A. Masters, MPH This is the fourth year in row that I have participated in the largest annual gathering of parties in interest to the health informatics ecosystem. From payor to provider to regulator to vendor to the patient and/or consumer of healthcare services, there is always much flare to consider, discard or assimilate. …
By Gregg A. Masters, MPH With the quiet time afforded this ‘Thanks Giving-Kah’, I feel called to express some ‘dis-ease’ with the progress towards our pursuit of the triple aim or sustainable healthcare ecosystem. As if the health reform battle hasn’t been a power partisan exchange from day one. Think again… If you weren’t paying …
Continue reading “ACA, Accountable Care and the @HealthcareGov Fiasco”
By Gregg A. Masters, MPH At the recently concluded 4th Annual Accountable Care Organization Congress held in Los Angeles one of the sessions I attended was offered by Tom Doerr, MD, Director of Innovation Research, and Deborah W. Robin, MD, MHCM, Medical Director, of Lumeris respectively, titled “New Hope for Primary Care: The Accountable Primary …
By Gregg A. Masters, MPH I received the following heads-up via email from former Senior Adviser to CTO Todd Park, now Health IT & Data Partnerships, Business Development, and Strategy at @Merck Aman Bhandari aka @GHIdeas on Sunday morning and wanted to make the challenge known to the innovation community especially those in hacking away at …
Continue reading “The Merck Heritage Provider Network Innovation Challenge Posts a $240,000 Purse”
By Gregg A. Masters, MPH One of the few ACO gatherings I’ve missed since the birth of the industry (and there have been quite a few since there are ‘experts’ everywhere), but the line-up NEHI put together is well worth a look. Both Steven Shortell and Molly Coye are definitely change agents on the front …
acowatch.me 