Why CMS should settle with primary care plaintiffs

Health Policy
October 31, 2011

By mid-November, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) must respond to the legal complaint filed in a Maryland federal court by six Augusta, Georgia family physicians.

These doctors are not asking for money, but for relief from the negative effects brought about by CMS’ twenty year reliance on the American Medical Association’s Relative Value Scale Update Committee (RUC) …

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Why CMS should settle with primary care plaintiffs

Few doctors will meet meaningful use in 2011, and that’s ok

Health Technology
September 26, 2011

2011 will be a disappointing year for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Office of the National Coordinator’s electronic health record incentive programs. We predict that few doctors and hospitals will meet the objectives set for the “meaningful use” of certified EHR technology. Meaningful use is, of course, the term that describes the objectives and measures providers and hospitals must meet in order to receive financial bonuses …

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Few doctors will meet meaningful use in 2011, and that’s ok

How might we think about EHRs globally while acting locally?

Health Technology
July 6, 2011

American health care information technology is undergoing two enormous leaps.

First, it is moving onto Web-based and mobile platforms – which are less expensive and facilitate information exchange – and away from client-server enterprise-centric technologies, which are more expensive and have limited interoperability. In addition, more EHR development activity is headed into the cloud, driven by large consumer-based firms with the technological depth to take it there. Both these trends …

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How might we think about EHRs globally while acting locally?

Physicians need to compare themselves with their peers

Health Policy
December 12, 2010

Imagine that an innovative health plan – aware that half or more of health care cost is waste and that physician costs to obtain the identical outcome can vary by as much as eight fold – hopes to sweep market share by producing better quality health care for a dramatically lower cost.

So it begins to evaluate its vast data stores. It’s goal is to identify the specialists, outpatient services and …

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Physicians need to compare themselves with their peers

Why the Florida Medical Association (FMA) is angry with the AMA

Health Policy
October 24, 2010

At an Orlando meeting recently, Florida Medical Association (FMA) members fumed that their parent, the AMA, isn’t adequately representing Florida’s private practice doctors. After talk of secession and forming a new group, they settled for writing a stern letter urging the AMA to straighten up.

The FMA dustup began with a resolution written by Douglas Stevens MD, a Fort Myers cosmetic surgeon – you can’t make this stuff up – complaining …

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Why the Florida Medical Association (FMA) is angry with the AMA

Beyond the final Medicare and Medicaid EHR incentive rules

Health Technology
September 10, 2010

by David C. Kibbe, MD, MBA and Brian Klepper, PhD

Finally, we have a Final Rule on the Medicare and Medicaid EHR incentive programs.

The rules and criteria are simpler and more flexible, and the measures easier to compute. But they are still an “all or nothing” proposition for physicians, who will have to meet all of the objectives and measures to receive any incentive payment. Doctors …

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Beyond the final Medicare and Medicaid EHR incentive rules