Dear patients, One year ago, I wrote to you about my concerns for the future of my practice in light of upcoming changes to the Medicare system. I explained my anxiety about the Medicare Access and CHIPS Reauthorization Act (MACRA),…
Dear patients,
One year ago, I wrote to you about my concerns for the future of my practice in light of upcoming changes to the Medicare system. I explained my anxiety about the Medicare Access and CHIPS Reauthorization Act (MACRA), a change in fee structure from fee-for-service (I treat you in the office, submit the bill to Medicare, and they pay the bill), to “value-based” payment (I …
President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed to “repeal and replace Obamacare.” A logical question is: With what? The announcement of Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga) as Trump’s nominee for secretary of health and human services provides some answers. Unlike other Republican…
President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed to “repeal and replace Obamacare.” A logical question is: With what? The announcement of Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga) as Trump’s nominee for secretary of health and human services provides some answers.
Unlike other Republican critics of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Price, an orthopedic surgeon, has offered many replacement plans of unmatched detail. His Empowering Patients First Act was 242 pages …
It used to be that hospitals billed Medicare for the services they provided, and Medicare -- I know this is crazy! - simply paid the bills. Those days are rapidly receding into history. Soon, a significant chunk of hospital revenue…
It used to be that hospitals billed Medicare for the services they provided, and Medicare — I know this is crazy! – simply paid the bills.
Those days are rapidly receding into history. Soon, a significant chunk of hospital revenue will be at risk, under a series of Medicare pay-for-performance programs. The idea behind P4P (as the cool kids call it) is simple. Third-party payers, like insurance companies or the Medicare …
The AMA supports the nomination of Dr. Tom Price based on decades of interactions with him as a member of the AMA House of Delegates, Georgia state senator and as a member of the House of Representatives since 2005. Over…
The AMA supports the nomination of Dr. Tom Price based on decades of interactions with him as a member of the AMA House of Delegates, Georgia state senator and as a member of the House of Representatives since 2005. Over these years, there have been important policy issues on which we agreed (medical liability reform) and others on which we …
On Tuesday, November 29, President-elect Donald Trump named Dr. Tom Price, a former orthopedic surgeon, current Republican congressman, and chair of the House Budget Committee, as his pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services. The same day, the American…
On Tuesday, November 29, President-elect Donald Trump named Dr. Tom Price, a former orthopedic surgeon, current Republican congressman, and chair of the House Budget Committee, as his pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services.
The same day, the American Medical Association issued a press release enthusiastically endorsing Price for the position.
The next day, Dr. Andrew Gurman, the president of the AMA, came to my …
MACRA -- the Medicare Access and Chip Reauthorization Act of 2015 -- is a disaster. It will take the joy out of practicing medicine without significantly improving patient outcomes (except in a circular way) or reducing cost, by moving medical…
MACRA — the Medicare Access and Chip Reauthorization Act of 2015 — is a disaster.
It will take the joy out of practicing medicine without significantly improving patient outcomes (except in a circular way) or reducing cost, by moving medical decisions from the bedside to the C-suite. It benefits primarily the health policy community — consultants, academics, executives — who designed it. Ironically, MACRA was one of the few major pieces …
In the last decade, the federal government has undertaken considerable steps to control the way doctors care for their patients. Its goal is to improve healthcare quality and lower costs, but the very regulation tasked with achieving this has created…
In the last decade, the federal government has undertaken considerable steps to control the way doctors care for their patients. Its goal is to improve healthcare quality and lower costs, but the very regulation tasked with achieving this has created a paperwork nightmare that actually does the opposite: it impedes care and increases costs.
I’m referring to the Physician Quality Reporting System, or PQRS, which originated with the Tax Relief and …
Americans spend more per capita on medical care than just about any other country and, yet they often have little to show for it. Americans have worse access to care than people in other countries, and are often less likely…
Americans spend more per capita on medical care than just about any other country and, yet they often have little to show for it. Americans have worse access to care than people in other countries, and are often less likely to receive primary care services, like preventive therapies and screening tests. Determined to address these problems, Medicare leaders have been testing out new models of primary care, hoping to find …
The British National Health Service (NHS) was born in 1948, based on legislation passed that year mandating free high-quality health care for all paid by taxes. In contrast, the U.S. started Medicare in 1966 to provide health care to the…
The British National Health Service (NHS) was born in 1948, based on legislation passed that year mandating free high-quality health care for all paid by taxes. In contrast, the U.S. started Medicare in 1966 to provide health care to the elderly and the State Children’s Insurance Program (SCHIP) in 1993 to fund health care for children whose parents were unable to afford it. Health care in the UK is still …
One of the biggest shifts in American health care over the last several years (and we’ve only just seen the tip of the iceberg so far) is the shift of the system away from the traditional fee-for-service model, and towards…
One of the biggest shifts in American health care over the last several years (and we’ve only just seen the tip of the iceberg so far) is the shift of the system away from the traditional fee-for-service model, and towards a system based more on quality, outcomes, and yes, a degree of rationing.
By all measures, we know that the pure fee-for-service model — at least mostly funded by Medicare — …
Physicians spend almost twice as much time each day typing on computers and filling out paperwork as they do seeing patients. That astonishing conclusion comes from research published this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Just think about that.…
Physicians spend almost twice as much time each day typing on computers and filling out paperwork as they do seeing patients. That astonishing conclusion comes from research published this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Just think about that. How would you feel if you spent two hours documenting every hour of work that you do? How would your boss feel about it? You’d be depressed and frustrated; your boss …
Recently, CMS sent out press releases touting over $1 billion in savings from Accountable Care Organizations. Here’s the tweet from Andy Slavitt, the acting Administrator of CMS: https://twitter.com/ASlavitt/status/768908822081667072 The link in the tweet is to a press release. The link…
Recently, CMS sent out pressreleases touting over $1 billion in savings from Accountable Care Organizations. Here’s the tweet from Andy Slavitt, the acting Administrator of CMS:
NEW ACO RESULTS: physicians are changing care, w better results for patients & are saving money. Over $1B. https://t.co/FEfe3QErb5
The link in the tweet is to a press release. The link in the press release citing more details is to another press release. There’s little in the way of analysis or data about how …
A guest column by the American College of Physicians, exclusive to KevinMD.com. This will not be another article focused on the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) and its Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS). Everyone else is writing about…
This will not be another article focused on the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) and its Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS). Everyone else is writing about that. (But I can’t promise that I won’t mention MIPS at all.)
We all want this sometimes, don’t we? We want the things in our daily lives that bug us the most, like long lines at the DMV, to just go away. But how often does that really happen? As the senior…
We all want this sometimes, don’t we? We want the things in our daily lives that bug us the most, like long lines at the DMV, to just go away. But how often does that really happen?
As the senior staff person for ACP’s governmental affairs team in Washington, DC, I often hear from exasperated physicians who want ACP to just make things they don’t like go away, whether it’s MACRA …
A guest column by the American Society of Anesthesiologists, exclusive to KevinMD.com. In the past several years, there has been a dramatic increase in media attention concerning bills patients receive from health care professionals who are not in the network…
In the past several years, there has been a dramatic increase in media attention concerning bills patients receive from health care professionals who are not in the network of providers their insurance company contracted with to provide health services. The out-of-network bills these patients …
Why must we keep repeating history? NCLB significantly increased the federal role in education by holding schools accountable for the academic progress of all students. NCLB held teachers responsible for education of children; MACRA-proposed changes will hold physicians responsible for…
Why must we keep repeating history?
NCLB significantly increased the federal role in education by holding schools accountable for the academic progress of all students. NCLB held teachers responsible for education of children; MACRA-proposed changes will hold physicians responsible for the medical progress of our patients. The largest problem with this approach is students and patients go home each day to whatever environment in which they live. Neither teachers nor physicians …
Recently, ACP offered practical solutions to physicians’ concerns about Medicare’s proposal to implement the new payment system created by the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA). The College’s detailed recommendations, summarized here in a press statement that is linked…
Recently, ACP offered practical solutions to physicians’ concerns about Medicare’s proposal to implement the new payment system created by the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA).
The College’s detailed recommendations, summarized here in a press statement that is linked to the comment letter itself, would replace CMS’s proposed and unnecessarily complex quality scoring system with a much simpler and understandable approach as developed by the College.
Transparency -- or its absence -- continues to fascinate health care analysts and health care economists. A study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine addresses the effects of public reporting of hospital mortality rates on outcomes. Its senior author,…
Transparency — or its absence — continues to fascinate health care analysts and health care economists. A study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine addresses the effects of public reporting of hospital mortality rates on outcomes. Its senior author, Dr. Ashish Jha, offered his perspective on the study results and on the topic.
According to the study investigators, mandatory public reporting of hospital mortality is not improving outcomes. The result of their analysis surprised them …
Get a group of health policy experts together and you’ll find one area of near universal agreement: We need more transparency in health care. The notion behind transparency is straightforward; greater availability of data on provider performance helps consumers make…
Get a group of health policy experts together and you’ll find one area of near universal agreement: We need more transparency in health care. The notion behind transparency is straightforward; greater availability of data on provider performance helps consumers make better choices and motivates providers to improve. And there is some evidence to suggest it works. In New York State, after cardiac surgery reporting went into effect, …
I joined physicians nationwide last year in cheering when Congress passed the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA). Not only did it eliminate the congressional budgetary fiction known as the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula, it also…
I joined physicians nationwide last year in cheering when Congress passed the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA). Not only did it eliminate the congressional budgetary fiction known as the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula, it also promised to simplify and improve Medicare’s costly and complex programs that purport to measure the quality of care we provide to our patients.
Unfortunately, as we review the draft implementing rule, …
The AMA supports the nomination of Dr. Tom Price based on decades of interactions with him as a member of the AMA House of Delegates, Georgia state senator and as a member of the House of Representatives since 2005. Over these years, there have been important policy issues on which we agreed (medical liability reform) and others on which we …
