AHIP: It’s Not Cost Shifting, We’re ‘Unleashing Patients’

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH Seriously folks, you’ve got to hand it to the PR firm supplying the American Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) with the brilliant, timely and thematically near argument resistant messaging copy just revealed via a .PPT preso titled ‘Health Care Innovation in the Context of Rising Health Care Costs‘ and delivered by Karen Ignani, …

Rebuttal and Comment to ‘NYT Op Ed: Emanuel Editorial is Irresponsible and Naive’

By Vince Kuraitis Zeke Emanuel’s editorial in the New York Times — The End of Health Insurance Companies — really got my blood boiling. It’s irresponsible and naive. Former Obama advisor Emanuel “predicts”: By 2020, the American health insurance industry will be extinct. Insurance companies will be replaced by accountable care organizations — groups of …

Monarch HealthCare: Leveraging Expertise in Population Health Management

A Case Study in the Brookings–Dartmouth ACO Pilot Program This case study examines the progress that Monarch HealthCare, a physician led independent practice association in Orange County, California, has made in its efforts to become accountable for the quality and overall cost of care for its patient population. Monarch HealthCare is one of the provider …

Miss Commonwealth Fund Webinar on ACOs?

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH If you did, do yourself a favor and watch the recorded broadcast ‘ACO Formation: Leading the Transition to New Models of Care‘, here. My net take away from the event is total optimism that the clearer thinking brain trust who understand, ‘failure is not an option’ for a healthcare conundrum …

Tweet Transcript of Commonwealth Fund ACO Formation: Leading the Transition to New Models of Care

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH TweetReach for #ACOchat – Demonstrating the ‘digital footprint’ of a real time healthcare focused social media ‘conversation…. Reached 20,760 peeps via the last 50 tweets….Exposure: 180,892 Impressions Tweet Types Each pie slice shows how many people saw how many tweets and the impressions generated via the 8 Tweeps participating below…. for real time …

Platforms, Accountable Care and Results

By Vince Kuraitis What do Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google have in common? Eric Schmidt, Chairman (and former President) of Google, coined the term “Gang of Four” in referring to the similar platform/application technical architecture and business models of these companies. In the case of Apple iOS and Google Android OS, much of the value is created by …

Markets, Metrics, Maturity and ACO Model: 6 Market Types

By Joseph F. Damore and Barbara Gray As finance leaders consider whether to apply to the Medicare Shared Savings Program, they should evaluate the application of accountable care principles to six other markets for value-based contracting. When the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued proposed regulations for Medicare accountable care organizations (ACOs), it refocused …

ACO Blueprint?

By Joe Damore In 2010, the Charlotte, N.C.-based Premier Health Alliance created two working groups to assist its hospital and health system member organizations to prepare to participate in the Medicare Shared Savings Program for accountable care organizations (ACOs), one of the voluntary programs created by the Affordable Care Act (healthcare reform) in 2010. As Premier’s …

ACO’s Surface at CES 2012 via Comments from United HealthGroup’s Reed Tuckson, MD

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH Powerful comments, insights and commentary by a visionary leader at United HealthGroup offered at the Digital Health Summit at CES 2012 in Las Vegas. While Dr. Tuckson spoke of ‘population management’ and an ‘all in’ commitment to ultimately tame and redesign a delivery and finance system that works, the gist …

Are ACOs ‘SMART’ or STUPID’? A Conversation with Jeffrey L. Cohen, Esq.

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH Some time ago a fellow healthtweep and colleague authored a post on his blog titled ACOs are STUPID. When I saw the title, I snickered thinking to myself here’s another cute sound byte in the then emerging chorus of ideological snipers taking aim at the Patient Protection and Affordable Care …