Monitoring the birth of an industry
By Gregg A. Masters, MPH This a re-post of an article written in October 2009 following Atul Gawande‘s article in the New Yorker on the ‘cost conundrum‘ which launched his presence and eventual celebrity on the national stage. Gawande was calling attention to the regional variations (small area analysis) in the Medicare spend and associated …
Continue reading “Health Care ‘Texas Style’: A Model for the Nation?”
By Fred Goldstein, MS and Gregg Masters, MPH This past year has seen major changes to the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) that launched the huge growth in Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) a principal workhorse in the transformational copy of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). It seems that the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services …
Continue reading “ACOs and Value Based Care: The Best of Times Or The Worst of Times? It Depends!”
by Gregg A. Masters, MPH The future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed – Attributed to William Gibson As a soldier mainstreaming both HMOs and (‘attorney in fact‘ vs. messenger model) 2nd generation PPOs (that re-priced claims to contract rates) into ‘mainstream medicine‘ in California vs. the then prevailing 2nd or 3rd tier physician/provider …
Continue reading “APG: Overview of CMMI New Models – Primary Care First and Direct Contracting”
by Gregg A. Masters, MPH I came across this piece on the Healthcare Blog penned by Kip Sullivan, Esq, critiquing this article posted in Health Affairs last May ‘Bending The Spending Curve By Altering Care Delivery Patterns: The Role Of Care Management Within A Pioneer ACO‘. Sullivan raises valid points as the the legitimacy of …
by Gregg A. Masters, MPH In our healthcare innovation economy from the private sector to material modifications of public programs including Medicare and Medicaid there is a massive effort to identify and enable sustainable delivery and financing schema to stem the treasury bleeding and inch however incrementally towards ‘universal coverage’. Ideological talking points opposing ‘Obamacare‘ …
by Gregg A. Masters, MPH When I penned the post, ‘CTE on the Accountable Care Agenda? Junior Seau it’s latest victim?‘ in 2012 my intention was to draw a circle around seemingly unrelated events now finding increasing conversational gravity in the emerging ‘population health‘ zeitgeist where social determinants of health are valued as strategic grist …
Continue reading “On the ‘N of 1’ As a Standard for ‘Accountable Care’”
by Gregg A. Masters, MPH The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation has announced the results of its ‘continuous learning‘ commitment model wherein ‘field reports‘ including provider comments and open door inputs are materially incorporated into tweaks of the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) as risk is progressively adopted by participating ACOs. This ‘new round’ iteration …
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 …
Continue reading “The Long and Winding Road to Healthcare Price Transparency”
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 …
Continue reading “POTUS: The De Facto Health Wonk-in-Chief of the US?”
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 …
Continue reading “Blab the Blockchain: Healthcare Implications?”
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