Author Archives

cindywilliams

The Massachusetts Mistake

Apr 10, 2011• 17

By ROGER COLLIER

A year after the passage of health care reform, fewer than half of Americans support it, a similar percentage believe that it has already been found unconstitutional or soon will be, health care costs are continuing to rise far faster than the CPI, and the Republican Party has seized on the issue as a sure election winner.

The Obama administration and congressional Democrats, now thoroughly on the defensive, are clearly surprised at the public and political reaction. But should they be? This post—on the reliance on Massachusetts as a model—is the first of three that will look at some of the miscalculations—and sheer bad luck—that have helped to undermine reform. When Governor Mitt Romney signed Massachusetts’ reform bill into law in 2006, it was widely regarded as a bipartisan political triumph, and one that was supported by the public and by most of the state’s insurers and providers. Massachusetts would be the first state to require virtually all legal residents to have coverage (with tax penalties imposed on those not complying), while providing subsidies for lower-income individuals not eligible for government programs, as well as to implement a state-administered brokerage function (the Connector) to allow competitive selection of health plans. By the fall of 2008, as congressional efforts to design national health care reform moved into overdrive with the election of Barack Obama, the Massachusetts legislation was widely regarded as a success. Public reactions were generally positive, the numbers of uninsured had fallen, and there had been no dramatic increase in costs. It was scarcely surprising that the Massachusetts model emerged from the field of competing proposals as the favorite of most Democratic lawmakers.

Unfortunately, the elected officials in Washington DC failed to recognize that Massachusetts was an exceptional state in terms of health care. Even before the state’s reform bill was enacted, the percentage of uninsured was very low. It was also a socially very liberal state, far more likely than most to support reform efforts (in fact, Massachusetts had passed, but then revoked, a slightly different version of health care reform a dozen years earlier). And, of course, the economy was still in its boom period when the new law was passed. Massachusetts had other advantages that would not transfer to national reform. As a small state, with only a small percentage of the population likely to be directly affected by reform, implementation could be much faster—less than a year for most provisions of the state’s new law. Continue reading…

Why CMIOs Matter, and Why We Hired One

Apr 10, 2011

By JONATHAN BUSH

On Monday morning, April 4, we were proud to announce that Dr. Todd Rothenhaus has come onboard here at athenahealth to serve in the role of chief medical information officer, or CMIO. It’s a new position and we’re excited he’s joined us. Among many other tasks he’ll take on, he’ll be working on various product development and physician advocacy initiatives.

So now that we’ve got one on the payroll…you might ask: what exactly is a CMIO? And why do we now have one at athenahealth?

I have always known, at a gut level, that from a sales perspective, CMIOs are more important for us to engage with early in the sales process than a traditional CIO (no offense Halamka, I still wanna be friends). In fact, we became major sponsors of CMIO magazine long before I truly appreciated the role of a CMIO!

The CMIO is almost always a doctor, but a doctor in an executive position responsible for managing the health information in a medical organization. They lead implementation of EMR and other health information technology systems. And it seems there is a Lorax element to most. Remember that Dr. Seuss favorite? Well, in the way that the Lorax speaks for the trees, the CMIOs I know speak for the other docs in their organization where management of information is concerned.Continue reading…

A Case for Self Insuring Small Business

Apr 8, 2011• 12

By MICHAEL TURPIN

Image via Wikipedia

During the course of 2009, an alarming trend line was broken. For the first time ever, more employers under 50 employees were not offering medical insurance to employees than those who continued to provide employer sponsored healthcare.

Unfortunately, achieving affordability is often a zero sum game and the current system often fails the weakest and most disenfranchised of its stakeholders. While the burden of spiraling healthcare costs has effected virtually every employer, the weight of cost increases has been borne disproportionately by individuals and smaller employers (1-250 employees). The opaque science of risk pooling, cost shifting and risk selection has as much to do with unacceptable increases as poor consumerism, over treatment and inefficiency. As we march toward insurance exchanges and pooled purchasing for employers in 2014, we will continue to witness a game of pass the parcel leaving smaller employers holding the bag.

Healthcare cost shifting begins at the highest levels with federal and state governments routinely cost shifting to the private sector by serially under-reimbursing specialists and hospitals for the cost of their services. Doctors and hospitals, in turn, shift cost to the private sector charging higher fees for services to make up for underfunded Medicare and Medicaid rates. Health systems have consolidated along with multi-specialty medical groups gaining critical bargaining power that results in higher contracted rate increases negotiated with insurers. Insurers, attempting to keep rising medical trends down, must exact concessions from less well leveraged providers such as community based hospitals and primary care doctors. The result is an Darwinian landscape where only the large survive.

As core medical trends hover between 7%-8%, insurer insured book of business medical trends have climbed into and remain in double digits. Larger employers remain more immune from peanut butter spread book of business trends due to their own unique claim credibility and in many instances, due to the simple act of self insurance. Lack of size and actuarial credibility leaves smaller employers and individuals to be underwritten within pools of risk — pools that continue to pass on the rising costs of care at an alarming rate. To add insult to injury, as states and the Federal government become increasingly larger medical payers (already representing over 50% of all medical spend in the US), cost shifting will only accelerate in the private sector resulting in higher medical trends impacting smaller employer pools.Continue reading…

Medicare, Medicaid Get Squeezed in Ryan Plan

Apr 5, 2011• 38

By MERRILL GOOZNER

Everyone agrees that controlling health care costs is the key to bringing long-term federal budget deficits under control. Government spending on Medicare for seniors and Medicaid for the poor has grown nearly twice as fast as the rest of the economy for decades and is by far the largest component of future projected deficits.

But government funded health care programs aren’t unique in that regard. Employer-based coverage for the working population, which is provided through private insurance companies, has grown just as fast. The problem in a nutshell is the cost of health care, not its funding source.

That’s why it’s important to consider how the two separate sides of our health care system – public plans and private plans – will interact should the Medicare privatization plan that Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., touted on Fox News Sunday become law. The House Budget Committee chairman’s alternative budget would turn Medicare over to private insurers for anyone who retired after 2021. Future retirees would receive a capped payment to buy insurance (he called it “premium support,” not a voucher). Medicaid would be turned into a capped block grant – which translates as a fixed sum awarded to states.

Capping expenditures is central to cost-control in the Ryan plan, which is essentially the same plan that he co-authored with former Congressional Budget Office director Alice Rivlin during the fiscal commission deliberations. The plan limits the annual growth in the amount earmarked for either premium support or block grants to one percentage point more than gross domestic product (call it GDP+1).

That’s about half of the actual health care cost outlays in most years. According to Congressional Budget Office projections released in January, federal spending on Medicare and Medicaid is expected to nearly double to $1.6 trillion by 2021, about a 7 percent annual increase. If the primary goal is holding down taxes and spending, capping that rise at GDP+1 provides the upside. With a wave of the legislative wand, government spending on health care for the old and poor would be reduced to more manageable proportions – between 3.5 and 4.5 percent a year depending on how fast the economy grows. Taxpayers could rejoice.Continue reading…

ACO Rules: Where’s the Beef?

Apr 5, 2011

By PAUL LEVY

I’m sorry, but I just don’t get it. Last week, CMS announced proposed regulations about setting up Accountable Care Organizations. Here’s the statutory background and the theory of the case, as set forth in the March 31 Medicare Fact Sheet:

Section 3022 of the Affordable Care Act, added a new section 1899 to the Social Security Act (the Act) that requires the Secretary to establish the Shared Savings Program by January 1, 2012. This program is intended to encourage providers of services and suppliers (e.g., physicians, hospitals and others involved in patient care) to create a new type of health care entity, which the statute calls an “Accountable Care Organization (ACO)” that agrees to be held accountable for improving the health and experience of care for individuals and improving the health of populations while reducing the rate of growth in health care spending. Studies have shown that better care often costs less, because coordinated care helps to ensure that the patient receives the right care at the right time, with the goal of avoiding unnecessary duplication of services and preventing medical errors.

Here’s the introductory paragraph from the CMS summary:

ACOs create incentives for health care providers to work together to treat an individual patient across care settings – including doctor’s offices, hospitals, and long-term care facilities. The Medicare Shared Savings Program will reward ACOs that lower growth in health care costs while meeting performance standards on quality of care and putting patients first. Patient and provider participation in an ACO is purely voluntary.

How will this work? And, will it work?

Let’s dig in.Continue reading…

Medical Loss Ratio: Putting Percentages and Politics Aside

Apr 5, 2011• 2

By CONNIE HARVEY

The Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) policy written into the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) requires health insurance companies to deliver more direct value to consumers by mandating that they spend a higher percentage of premium dollars collected on medical care, as opposed to administrative costs.

The new law requires that at least 85 percent of all premium dollars collected by insurance companies for large employer plans be spent on healthcare services and quality improvement. For plans sold to individuals and small employers, at least 80 percent of the premium must be spent on benefits and quality improvement. If insurance companies do not meet these goals because of administrative costs or high profits, they must provide rebates to consumers starting in 2012.

While much debate exists on if this is requirement is “fair,” those on both side of the argument can agree that any reduction in administrative costs is a step in the right direction, especially if it frees up dollars to be spent in areas that will directly impact members. Moving beyond politics and percentages, payers can save up to 30-50 percent in operating costs when working with a partner to streamline back office processes. Examples include:

Claims processing, billing and provider maintenance: By outsourcing standard transactional services, payers can increase data quality and accelerate turnaround time on claims processing and lower costs.
Enrollment processing: Payers can turn to partners to handle standard enrollment functions including setting up new member accounts, staffing call centers for member questions and issuing satisfaction surveys.
Auditing solutions: Recovering funds from incorrectly paid claims is a service payers can outsource that can recoup funds by having an outsourcing partner track and even litigate wrongful payment claims on an insurance company’s behalf.
Customer care: Using a partner to help communicate plan information and answer questions from members allows payers to focus on quality of care and new product introduction, while reducing costs and complying with regulatory demands.Continue reading…

Invalidated Results Watch

Apr 5, 2011

By MARYA ZILBERBERG, MD

My friend Ivan Oransky runs a highly successful blog called Retraction Watch; if you have not yet discovered it, you should! In it he and his colleague Adam Marcus document (with shocking regularity) retractions of scientific papers. While most of the studies are from the bench setting, some are in the clinical arena. One of the questions they have raised is what should happen with citations of these retracted studies by other researchers? How do we deal with this proliferation of oftentimes fraudulent and occasionally simply mistaken data?

A more subtle but no less difficult conundrum arises when papers cited are recognized to be of poor quality, yet they are used to develop defense for one’s theses. The latest case in point comes from the paper I discussed at length yesterday, describing the success of the Keystone VAP prevention initiative. And even though I am very critical of the data, I do not mean to single out these particular researchers. In fact, because I am intimately familiar with the literature in this area, I can judge what is being cited. I have seen similar transgressions from other authors, and I am sure that they are ubiquitous. But let me be specific.

In the Methods section on page 306, the investigators lay out the rationale for their approach (bundles) by stating that the “ventilator care bundle has been an effective strategy to reduce VAP…” As supporting evidence they cite references #16-19. Well, it just so happens that these are the references that yours truly had included in her systematic review of the VAP bundle studies, and the conclusions of that review are largely summarized here. I hope that you will forgive me for citing myself again:Continue reading…

Why Primary Care Parity Matters

Apr 4, 2011• 16

By PAUL FISCHER, MD

After an exciting and challenging day of caring for patients and teaching students, a third-year medical student on his family medicine rotation says to me, “I really like what you do, but I just cannot afford to go into family practice.” I realized that by “afford,” he was referring not only to finances but also to the expectations of his parents, friends, and medical school. After spending 35 wonderful years as a family doctor, I have been “dissed’ by a kid who wants to become a dermatologist.

So I am of two minds. Part of me is fulfilled by being needed, loved, and respected by my patients.

Over time, they have increasingly looked to me to diagnosis, advise, reassure, and guide them through a complex healthcare environment in which few others offer them help. Another part of me sees that what I do is increasingly devalued by forces outside the exam room ― those who pay for health care, those who question the “medical necessity” of each test I order or drug I prescribe, and those in medicine who are more likely to know a procedure’s CPT code than a patient’s name.

We are in this position because we have failed to define ourselves, instead allowing others to perpetuate myths about what we do. The first such myth is that what we do is easy. Nothing can be further from the truth. In about 15 minutes, we are asked to treat a long list of chronic problems (e.g., diabetes, obesity, hypertension), resolve a few new problems (eg cough, headache), address preventative health recommendations (eg, smoking, flu shot), integrate the psychosocial issues that impact the patient’s health, and figure out how to get it all paid for by an insurance company using codes that don’t really match either my patient’s problems or the care I provide. Oh, and by the way, can you look at this rash and fill this prescription for my husband? Recent research has shown that an average primary care visit is 50% more complex than a visit to a cardiologist and five times more complex than one to a psychiatrist. So no, it is not easy.

The second myth is that it requires less training than other medical specialties. This has resulted in some assuming that primary care can be left to “midlevel” clinicians. While physician assistants and nurse practitioners can work effectively in primary care settings, it is a mistake to believe that they provide equivalent care to patients with complex problems, and we have suffered by the wide acceptance of this assumption. OR techs can work effectively in an operating room, but no one suggests that they replace surgeons.

Another Swing at the Windmill of VAP

Apr 4, 2011• 1

By MARYA ZILBERBERG, MD

Sorry, folks, but I have been so swamped with work that I have been unable to produce anything cogent here. I see today as a gift day, as my plans to travel to SHEA were foiled by mother nature’s sense of humor. So, here I am trying to catch up on some reading and writing before the next big thing. To be sure, I have not been wasting time, but have completed some rather interesting analyses and ruminations, which, if I am lucky, I will be able to share with you in a few weeks.

Anyhow, I am finally taking a very close look at the much touted Keystone VAP prevention study. I have written quite a bit about VAP prevention here, and my diatribes about the value proposition of “evidence” in this area are well known and tiresome to my reader by now. Yet, I must dissect the most recent installment in this fallacy-laden field, where random chance occurrences and willful reclassifications are deemed causal of dramatic performance improvements.

So, the paper. Here is the link to the abstract, and if you subscribe to the journal, you can read the whole study. But fear not, I will describe it to you in detail.

In its design it was quite similar to the central line-associated blood stream infection prevention study published in the New England Journal in 2006, and similarly the sample frame included Keystone ICUs in Michigan. Now, recall that the reason this demonstration project happened in Michigan is because of their astronomical healthcare-associated infection (HAI) rates. Just to digress briefly, I am sure you have all heard of MRSA; but have you heard of VRSA? VRSA stands for vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, MRSA’s even more troubling cousin, vancomycin being a drug that MRSA is susceptible to. Now, thankfully, VRSA has not yet emerged as an endemic phenomenon, but of the handful of cases of this virtually untreatable scourge that has been reported, Michigan has had plurality of them. So, you get the picture: Michigan is an outlier (and not in the desirable direction) when it comes to HAIs.Continue reading…