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July 8, 2015 | Medical Xpress

Patients consistently treated by one primary care doctor visit the ER less often

Patients who are treated by the same primary care doctor on a regular basis go to the emergency room and are hospitalized less frequently than those who bounce between multiple providers, according to new research by the UCLA Center for...

July 8, 2015 | Modern Healthcare

Medicare Proposes Paying for End-of-Life Counseling in Sweeping Physician Payment Rule

In a draft of Medicare's first physician payment rule since Congress scrapped the sustainable growth-rate formula, the CMS proposes paying for end-of-life counseling and revises several quality-incentive programs that will be rolled into a...

July 8, 2015 | AAFP News

This is What Stability Looks Like: Proposed 2016 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule

“Today’s release of the proposed 2016 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule marks the beginning of health security for millions of elderly and disabled Americans who depend on Medicare. It’s the first time in more than a decade that federal law...

July 8, 2015 | News Medical

Improving access to affordable primary care cuts hospital stays, but fails to reduce ED visits in dual eligible patients

Convincing the nation's most vulnerable citizens to avoid costly emergency department visits is proving harder than expected. A new study from the University of Iowa found improving access to affordable primary care reduced preventable...

July 8, 2015 | AHIP Coverage

Medicaid Health Plans are Improving Access and Quality of Care

As states look at how to provide high-quality, affordable care to Medicaid beneficiaries, more are turning to Medicaid managed care for the care coordination and support Medicaid health plans provide for millions. Nearly two-thirds of all...

July 7, 2015 | Politico

NIH sees reversal of fortune with proposed funding boosts

After a dozen years of flat funding, the National Institutes of Health has become a top target on Capitol Hill — not for less money but more, potentially billions more by 2020. It’s a remarkable turnaround for the huge medical research...

July 6, 2015 | FierceHealthFinance

Improved Continuity of Care Could Save Billions of Dollars, Study Says

Streamlining the continuity of care among Medicare patients could save the United States hundreds of billions of dollars a year, TheStreet.com has reported. That's the conclusion of a Johns Hopkins University study published in the July...

July 6, 2015 | Harvard Business Review

The Employer-Led Health Care Revolution

In the years leading up to 2009, Intel tried a number of popular approaches to tame its soaring health care costs. To encourage employees and their families to be more involved in the purchase of their care and aware of its actual cost,...

July 6, 2015 | AAFP News

Physicians Dodge Medicare Pay Cut After AAFP Puts Up Fight

Primary care physicians avoided another potential payment cut when the House and Senate agreed to remove a proposed Medicare pay reduction from trade legislation that recently became law. The law, the Trade Preferences Extension Act,...

July 6, 2015 | AAFP News

Quality Incentive Payments: Team-based or Individualized?

Pay-for-performance programs first appeared on the health care landscape more than decade ago, and ever since then, stakeholders have been struggling with how to best reward health care professionals for their good work. Are physicians and...

July 5, 2015 | New York Times

With Merging of Insurers, Questions for Patients About Costs and Innovation

The nation’s five largest health insurance companies are circling one another like hungry lions closing in on prey. On Friday, Aetna said it would acquire its smaller rival Humana to create a company with combined revenues of $115 billion...

July 5, 2015 | Forbes

With Palin 'Death Panels' Debunked, Congress Pushes End-Of-Life Planning

The politics of end-of-life care are beginning to disappear in Washington six years after Tea Party darling Sarah Palin injected false claims that Congressional health reform legislation included “death panels.” Bipartisan legislation...

July 4, 2015 | Star Tribune

Minnesota ACA reform saved $61.5 million, can guide innovation

Beginning in 2017, the Affordable Care Act gives Minnesota and other states remarkable freedom to dramatically overhaul the law through “innovation waivers” to customize health reform to their citizens’ needs. One of the first questions...

July 4, 2015 | Modern Healthcare

Editorial: Save AHRQ; spend more on delivery system R&D

In the world of healthcare delivery system reform, Dr. Peter Pronovost of Johns Hopkins University is a rock star. His pioneering work in reengineering hospital processes that lead to unnecessary infections has been credited with...

July 3, 2015 | Forbes

Aetna's $37B Humana Deal Expands Role In Medicare's Value-Based Care Push

Following weeks of speculation, Aetna (AET) made it official this morning, agreeing to buy rival Humana (HUM) for $37 billion as merger-mania sweeps the health insurance industry. For now, the deal appears to put the two insurers into the...

July 2, 2015 | Kaiser Health News

Study Finds Doctors Order Fewer Preventive Services For Medicaid Patients

Gynecologists ordered fewer preventive services for women who were insured by Medicaid than for those with private coverage, a recent study found. The study by researchers at the Urban Institute examined how office-based primary care...

July 2, 2015 | Medical Economics

Becoming a PCMH: How one physician transformed his practice

Ever since James L. Holly, MD, began practicing family medicine in 1975, dictation and transcription frustrated him as a means of recording what transpired during patient visits. In 1998, two years after forming a group practice, he...

July 1, 2015 | FierceHealthPayer

Improved data, reimbursement vital to better behavioral care coordination

Current approaches to managing behavioral health benefits and reimbursement create challenges for effective care coordination, according to a new report from the Massachusetts attorney general's office. The AG set out to examine how...

June 30, 2015 | MedPage Today

ACP Calls for Behavioral Health Integration

Addressing behavioral health issues in the primary care setting makes sense, and it's time for stakeholders to address and eliminate barriers to integrating mental health and physical health for the sake of patients, the American College...

June 30, 2015 | Healthcare Informatics

Could AHRQ Really Be Eliminated? And Why Would It Be?

As HCI reported on June 25, “The [U.S.] House Appropriations Committee voted in favor of a bill that would eliminate the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Agency for Health Research and Quality, a research agency that has long...