The final MACRA rules are out. There is plenty of room for debate about them, but one thing is clear: They are a fine example of why we cannot expect the federal government to be the key and most powerful driver of change in healthcare.
This is not a political statement, not an anit-government slogan, not a libertarian assertion. This is a systemic observation.
This is not because the law or the CMS rule-makers are not well-intentioned. To the contrary, MACRA seems like a noble enterprise. Congress is to be congratulated for at least temporarily getting itself unstuck long enough to pass it. CMS is trying their mightiest to push healthcare in the direction of actually offering value for all the money we keep shoveling into it.
But just look at it: Over 2,000 pages, full of complexities, exceptions, subsidiary re-payment clauses, labels and circles and arrow that will keep healthcare lawyers and consultants in fine shape for quite some time to come. As THCB’s Kip Sullivan has pointed out, MACRA is supposed to be rewarding good “volume to value” behavior and punishing its opposite, but it is so complex that few physicians will be able to honestly tell whether they will get rewarded, how much, or for exactly what.
Operant Conditioning
Or when. Have you ever tried to train a dog? If you want them to stop some behavior, like digging in the garden or jumping up on you, you have to catch them in the act and give them a negative response right then. If you want to reward them for something, you have to give them the treat (or the clicker click that signals a reward) the moment they do it, so that they know what the heck you are talking about and how compelling the reward or punishment is. (My lab used to be all, “If it’s not cheese, don’t even bother.”)
People are not that different, especially people trying to run the increasingly complex business of a medical practice out of one hand while trying to actually practice medicine with the other. If you want them to do something that is both different and difficult, give them an impressive reward the instant they do it, a reward that is significant in comparison to all the other influences on their bottom line, and that happens in this billing cycle.
I recently had the opportunity to join Boston news media veteran, Dan Rea, on his AM radio program, 
A couple of weeks ago I was discussing the opportunities for using block chain technology for medical record interoperability with a group of friends who unsurprisingly see their real experience as evidence that we haven’t made it easy to exchange medical records yet. While chatting, one of my friends asked the question – “Isn’t there some sort of security problem with Health Information Exchanges (HIEs), because block chain technology could solve security issues, especially if that is what is holding things back?” I thought about it and my immediate answer was “not really.” The sharing problem is about trust and finding a model that works for sharing records rather than just some underlying security conundrum.
Today, we are finalizing policies to implement the new Medicare Quality Payment Program. Part of the bipartisan Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA), the Quality Payment Program aims to create a more modern, patient-centered Medicare program by promoting quality patient care while controlling escalating costs through the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and incentive payments for Advanced Alternative Payment Models (Advanced APMs).
