Health Reform

What's the definition of insanity?

This edition of the Health Wonk Review is a bit tongue-in-cheek, as I offer some interesting definitions of well-known words and make light of some of the more despair-inducing aspects of the world of health policy. Buckle up, because it’s going to be a bumpy ride![read more]

EHR implementation race

According to a recent study by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, only 31 percent of solo practitioners have an EHR system that meets the requirements for Meaningful Use Stage 1, compared to 62 percent of mid-sized practices and 82 percent of larger healthcare facilities.[read more]

Healthcare obstacles

It’s almost cliché to say that the American healthcare system is changing. But the reality is that the pace of care delivery transformation will speed up in 2013 with technology, consumerism and the Affordable Care Act. All these factors will merge on a sector that today represents one-fifth of the economy.[read more]

Andy Rooney, lovable curmudgeon

I am getting close to the age where I should be a bit confused, but my younger colleagues also seem confused about the Affordable Care Act. From what I read the Affordable Care Act is not affordable, nor is it patient oriented. Patients really had little to do with its formation.[read more]

primary care / shutterstock

A report from one of the largest physician recruiting firms in the country could give some heft to the specialty of primary care (whose disciplines include general internal medicine, family medicine, general pediatrics, and primary OB/GYN). Americans are spending more money on primary care physicians than on specialist care.[read more]

health news

One of the main tenets of the ACA is the assimilation by Medicaid of the eligible uninsured. In order to attract more physicians who will accept Medicaid CMS, the states have promised to increase reimbursements for physicians who accept Medicaid. But physicians are balking.[read more]

spirit of america / Shutterstock.com

Obama is on the cusp of a nationwide re-introduction tour, of sorts, designed to persuade voters of the ACA's merits. Well, this news ought to put a feather in Obama’s cap: Massachusetts’ healthcare reform didn’t result in substantially more hospital use or higher costs.[read more]

health care delivery / shutterstock

We have a real paradox in American healthcare. On the one hand we have exceptionally well educated and well trained providers who are committed to our care; we can be pleased at what is available when needed for our care. On the other hand, we have a dysfunctional health care delivery system.[read more]

healthcare/shutterstock

Perhaps the most important single takeaway from this newly released data isn’t even the data itself but where it came from. It couldn’t come from an industry that’s kept pricing deeply cloaked behind legally binding contracts between providers and payers for decades. It came without much fanfare directly from our Federal Government.[read more]

I can accept the proposition that data will be valued differently by different parties. However, I want to throw something else into the mix: We are collectively trying to move away from fee-for-service medicine. As the saying goes: the future is already here; it just isn't evenly distributed. Some are further down the path than others. I think that our time and effort is better spent on ensuring that value-based purchasing systems are up and running, rather than on improving the pricing transparency of FFS medicine.[read more]

fast food / shutterstock

Mid-sized, low wage companies will feel the effect of Affordable Care Act (ACA) implementation. Opponents of the law have been making a big deal out of how it will harm businesses and stop their growth plans. But if you learn more, you’ll see there’s little to fear.[read more]

workers' comp / freedigitalphotos.net

ICD-9 coding to ICD-10 as mandated by the Health Insurance Portability Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPPA). Workers’ compensation commercial insurers are non-covered entities under HIPPA and therefore exempt from the mandate to convert their billing practices to ICD-10.[read more]