A ‘Back of the Napkin-esque’ Review of the SCOTUS ACA Decision Tree

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH While trolling for interesting tidbits on the web, I came across what appears to be a simplified representation of the impact of the Court’s ruling. The original piece was offered by Emily Corwin and posted under the title ‘SCOTUS And The Affordable Care Act: An Overview.’ A deeper dive into …

SCOTUS and the ACA: Reflections on the Judgements of the Court

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH On a special edition of ‘This Week in Accountable Care‘ we’re hosting a post ‘SCOTUS’ (Supreme Court of the United States) reflections session to consider the implications of their rulings. We’re somewhat ‘on call’ in the scheduling department but SCOTUS must announce their opinion on Thursday, June 28th shortly after …

How Hospitals Can Test the Waters of Accountable Care

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH Found on the Accountable Care Bulletin. Hospitals considering accountable care strategies have plenty of options to choose from, but deciding where to begin can be confusing. Joseph Damore, Vice President of Engagement and Delivery for Premier, explores how hospitals can test the waters of accountable care, from engaging staff in wellness …

ACOs, Patients, Consumers and the Dark Matter Glue that Makes it All Work

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH It’s been a brutal pace and schedule of late and one of the pieces I’ve omitted from presenting here is titled: ‘Building Patient-Centeredness in the Real World: The Engaged Patient and the Accountable Care Organization‘ proffered by colleague and friend Michael Millenson, aka @MLMillenson, President, Health Quality Advisors LLC. I received …

Un-bundling the Act: Provisions for ACOs

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH We heard a lot about the rough life of Federal legislators when one of the material objections aka ‘talking points’ to actually considering the thoughtful remedies borne via public/private discourse and years if not decades of health policy development and experience outlined in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act …

Update: Growth and Dispersion of Accountable Care Organizations – Leavitt Partners

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH While Attending the Third National ACO Summit in Washington, DC last week I  had the opportunity to cross paths with Thomas Merrill my liaison with Leavitt Partners (LP) responsible for our interview on ‘This Week in Accountable Care‘ discussing LP’s initial release of their report ‘Growth and Dispersion of Accountable …

Dave Chase CEO of Avado at Health Datapalooza

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH In the flurry of activities associated with the Health Data Forum III in Washington, DC aka (‘health datapalooza‘) I managed to corral  Dave Chase aka @ChaseDave in the Exhibition Hall at the DC Convention Center following his presentation at the ACO breakout session. Amidst the background noise, we hear from …

Atul Gawande at Health Data Palooza Session on ACOs: A Keynote

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH Since he authored ‘The [healthcare] Cost Conundrum‘ piece some three years ago, positing the question of who will emerge as the ‘anchor tenant’ business model in healthcare, I’ve been ‘waving’ at Atul Gawande via social media including Twitter and blog. When I saw that he was faciliating a breakout session …

Towards a Framework of an ACO (Accountable Care) and Meaningful Use Crosswalk

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH Lets begin with the core observation that both ACOs (or more broadly cast and therefore agile accountable care undertakings) and the Meaningful Use program are for the most part children of statute with intent to impact a less than optimal if not failing health care delivery and financing paradigm. The …

ACOs, PCMHs and Risk Contracting: A Primer

By Ben Miller, PsyD Accountable Care Organizations (ACO), according to NPR, takes “up only seven pages of the massive new health law” yet has become one hot topic in healthcare circles. What are ACOs and what implications do they have on the community? Well first, let’s define an ACO: Accountable Care Organizations are partnerships between …