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September 26, 2014 | iHealthBeat

House Bill Would Allow ACOs To Expand Use of Telehealth Services

Two lawmakers have introduced a bill (HR 5558) that aims to improve the accountable care organization model in part by allowing ACOs to expand telehealth services, Becker's Hospital Review's "Health IT & CIO Review" reports Bill...

September 26, 2014 | Healthcare Finance News

ACOs restrained by IT obstacles: Interoperability and technology costs cited as challenges

The ability of accountable care organizations to meet the goals of improving care and lowering costs may be hindered by health IT obstacles suggests a new analysis. Of the 62 ACOs polled by Premier healthcare alliance this past summer, 88...

September 25, 2014 | Modern Healthcare

Medicare's Pioneer program down to 19 ACOs after three more exit

Three more accountable care organizations dropped out of Medicare's Pioneer program, which was designed to test the payment and delivery model with a small group of elite providers deemed best prepared to handle the operational demands and...

September 25, 2014 | The Huffington Post

How an Influential Group of Doctors Exerts Influence Over Medicare Payments to Physicians

Imagine a scenario in which Exxon Mobil recommends to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) how much carbon dioxide that oil and gas companies should be allowed to emit -- and the EPA approves those recommendations 90 percent of...

September 25, 2014 | Universal American Corp.

Primary Care Physician-Led ACOs, in Partnership with Universal American Subsidiary, Generated $57 Million in Savings for Medicare Shared Savings Program

Universal American Corp. (NYSE:UAM) announced today that the Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) it formed in partnership with primary care physicians generated $57 million in total program savings for the Centers for Medicare &...

September 25, 2014 | Healthcare Finance News

Demography drives Medicare disparities

New research by the Brookings Institution suggests that socioeconomic factors can account for most of the geographical variation in Medicare spending. These findings contradict previous research that claimed geographic differences in “...

September 24, 2014 | Health Leaders Media

Congress Mulls Primary Care Doc 'Re-entry' Plan Bill: A bill introduced by John Sarbanes (D-MD) would address the nation's primary care physician shortage by funding pilot programs for mid-career, retired, and retiring physicians to continue practicing medicine.

There's a bill floating around in Congress that addresses the nation's primary care physician shortage. It's called the Primary Care Physician Reentry Act. It's sponsored by Rep. John P. Sarbanes, (D-MD), and there's plenty to like about...

September 24, 2014 | Modern Healthcare

ACOs struggle with advanced IT, interoperability, survey shows

Many accountable care organizations are struggling with advanced IT functions and interoperability, a survey of 62 ACOs conducted in July and August 2014 by Premier and the eHealth Initiative shows. “Most ACOs are still at the stage of...

September 24, 2014 | Fierce Healthcare

Lack of education breeds disparities despite equal access to care

Improved access to healthcare under the Affordable Care Act won't necessarily narrow the care disadvantage gap for less educated patients, according to a new brief from the Virginia Commonwealth University's (VCU) Center on Society and...

September 23, 2014 | Medical Xpress

Unless Congress acts, patients may soon lose access to primary care

A national report showing the benefits of preventing a reduction in the rates physicians receive for providing Medicaid services was released today by the American College of Physicians (ACP). The report, "Why Congress Must Save the...

September 23, 2014 | The Gerontological Society of America

New Hartford Change AGEnts Network to Optimize Patient Centered Medical Homes for Older Patients and Their Families

The Hartford Change AGEnts Initiative today announced the formal launch of the new Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) Network, which will seek to ensure that the PCMH — a highly coordinated, team-based model of primary care — delivers...

September 23, 2014 | New York Times

A Health Care Success Story

IT may have been the most influential magazine article of the past decade. In June of 2009, the doctor and writer Atul Gawande published a piece in The New Yorker called “The Cost Conundrum,” which examined why the small border city of...

September 23, 2014 | HealthDay

Report Identifies Game Changers for U.S. Health Care: Recent innovations, developments may transform direction of patient care in next decade, researchers say

Imagine if doctors and hospitals got paid for providing better care, not more care, and consumers had better data for making informed health choices. A new report suggests that's the direction the U.S. health system is headed. The report...

September 22, 2014 | Modern Healthcare

Medicare gives first glimpse of ACO quality performance

The CMS for the first time publicly released individual performance data for Medicare accountable care organizations on 33 measures of healthcare quality. The results for 220 of the participants (PDF) in the Medicare Shared Savings...

September 22, 2014 | The Boston Globe

Suicide prevention in primary care

Several years ago, a college student asked me for feedback about an essay she’d written. I usually enjoy helping young writers, but this request made me very uncomfortable. In the essay, the student detailed her long struggle with...

September 20, 2014 | Modern Healthcare

ACOs, other delivery reforms shift job roles at hospitals

Phoenix obstetrician Megan Cheney no longer makes hours of telephone calls on Thursday nights to report routine results of laboratory tests to waiting patients. The calls, however, still get made every week. A medical assistant with...

September 19, 2014 | MD News

From ‘My’ Patient to ‘Our’ Patient: How New Models Are Transforming Care in Central Pennsylvania: Proactively addressing the challenge of improving the health of individuals and communities across Central Pennsylvania, WellSpan Health is establishing patient-centered medical homes (PCMHs) in its primary care practices.

The PCMH model engages providers to partner with patients to help them achieve their health goals — rather than merely treating patients when they have illnesses or injuries. “This is a paradigm shift in health care,” notes Karen Jones,...

September 19, 2014 | Concord Monitor

Patient-centered care can improve costs and quality, industry panelists say at health summit

It requires an investment in time, money and a lot of work behind the scenes, but industry officials said they’re optimistic that a more coordinated approach to primary care can both cut costs in the long run and lead to healthier outcomes...

September 18, 2014 | MD News

Patient-centered Medical Home: A Model of Care at Summit Health: Summit Health has adopted the patient-centered medical home (PCMH) model to provide patients with a comprehensive, coordinated and accessible approach to primary care.

Rather than a place, the PCMH is an approach to providing primary care that is patient-centered, team-based, and focused on quality and safety. It establishes the patient’s primary care physician as the fundamental coordinator of the...

September 18, 2014 | The Atlantic

Why I'm Becoming a Primary-Care Doctor: The U.S. has a shortage of family physicians, but many med students avoid the specialty, stigmatizing it as uninteresting.

A few weeks ago, I met up with two of my medical school classmates for a drink. I’ve known them for the past three years, but I never had a heart-to-heart with them before the other night. But it’s the time of year when fourth-year...