According to our fourth-annual State of Population Health Survey, progress toward such accountability has stalled. In large part, this is because progress requires providers to choose to put some portion of their revenues at risk, based on their ability to manage cost and quality. Years of pilot programs by the Department…
Healthcare consolidation took a new turn this year, and in a big way. On top of deals by Anthem and Optum to acquire delivery operations, the formation of the Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JP Morgan (ABJ) healthcare partnership has raised anxiety to unprecedented levels. Margin compression was already a fact…
It’s not as user-friendly as Consumer Reports, but the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ overall star rating system represents progress in getting data into the hands of health care consumers. And despite some methodological shortcomings, it puts providers on their toes, which is a good thing. On July 27,…
Hospital industry lobbyists earned their money recently when the Obama administration bowed to Congressional pressure and delayed the release of a new system to rate hospitals based on health outcomes for patients treated under Medicare. The delay is likely to be just a short-term respite for the industry. Hospital ratings…
As a response to mounting healthcare costs and concerns about the quality of the care those dollars are buying, payers increasingly are exploring ways to bend the cost curve and improve quality to yield greater value. For healthcare delivery organizations in this environment, strategic alignment with clinicians has never been…
Our healthcare system today is broken in large part because of how we pay for it. Our fee-for-service legacy gives providers an incentive to deliver as many exams, tests, and treatments and fill as many beds as possible. But as we know, piling on services does not equate to high-quality…
