The Health Care Blog – Page 337 – Everything you always wanted to know about the Health Care system. But were afraid to ask.

Above the Fold

Does It Matter If You Get Along With Your Doctor?

Dec 6, 2016• 4

By NATHAN MOORE, MD

Seems like a silly question, right?

No one ever asks if you get along with the cashier at the grocery store or the barista at your neighborhood coffee shop. For most folks choosing a doctor means finding someone in your area who’s taking new patients with your insurance, which usually isn’t too many.

Simply getting an appointment is hard enough, so expecting a pleasant experience and a good relationship with the doctor seems to be an unreasonable request, like asking for a unicorn who also speaks fluent Spanish. Many people don’t think patient-physician relationship is particularly important; they’re looking to the doctor for medical advice, not to be a friend. In these days of electronic medical records and 15 minute appointments, many physicians simply don’t have the time to get to know patients and find out their motivations, goals and fears. It’s even harder for patients with language and cultural barriers; for example, physicians talk more and listen less to black patients than to white patients.

So why do we care?

Why the Affordable Part Didn’t Work

Dec 6, 2016• 7

By PAUL KECKLEY

Paul Keckley On March 23, 2010, Congress passed the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”. It soon became known as the “Affordable Care Act aka ACA” before being labeled “Obamacare”.

Its aims were two: to reduce costs and cover everyone. In the 79 months since passage, it remains arguably the most divisive public policy platform since FDR’s New Deal in the ‘30s and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society in the 60s. Per Kaiser Family Foundation’s Tracking polls since its passage, the public’s view about the ACA remains split: half think it’s an overreach by the federal government that has resulted in sky-rocketing health insurance premiums across the board, and the other half believe expansion of insurance coverage for 25 million justifies the effort. Each side cherry-picks elements of the law they like and decry parts they despise.

But all concede the law has not addressed affordability as originally intended. News about insurance premium spikes, has dogged the ACA since its passage lending to critics’ conclusions that the law was fundamentally flawed and had to go.

In 2009, I facilitated several meetings for the White House Office of Health Reform seeking industry input into reform legislation.

Letter from Washington:
Don’t Jump … Yet

Dec 5, 2016• 12

By GREG FULTON

Washington, D.C. hardly seems like a town on suicide watch.

As November turned to December, from the venerable Old Ebbitt Grill near the White House, to Charlie Palmer Steak at 101 Constitution and over to The Capital Grille at 601 Pennsylvania, revelers abounded, in both food and drink.

At the Capitol Hyatt on New Jersey Avenue though, some contrasts were evident. While contestants from the Miss World 2016 pageant moved in and out of the upper lobby to awaiting buses, in the lower-level meeting rooms, also from November 30 to December 2, the mood was hopeful optimism meets whistling past the graveyard.

There the Jefferson College of Population Health summit brought forth Andy Slavitt, Michael Leavitt, Farzad Mostashari, NCQA President Peggy O’Kane, former advisors from the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, officials from Johns Hopkins, the Henry Ford Health System, Brookings, Deloitte, AMA, AHA and the American College of Physicians and many more to dissect MACRA and ponder “population health strategy under the new administration.”

The consensus on where value-based care (VBC) is heading?

Wait and see.

A Policy Agenda to Address New Unintended Adverse Consequences of EHRs

Dec 4, 2016• 10

By SITTIG, WRIGHT, ASH + SINGH

flying cadeucii In large part due to the $35 billion, Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act incentives more than 80% of acute care hospitals now use EHRs, from under 10% just 7 years ago. Despite considerable progress, we have not achieved all that was originally envisioned from this transformation and there have been numerous unexpected adverse consequences (UACs), i.e. unpredictable, emergent problems associated with health IT implementation, use and maintenance. In 2006, we described a set of UACs associated with use of computer-based provider order entry (CPOE) (see Table 1). Many of these originally identified UACs have not been completely addressed or alleviated, and some have evolved over time (e.g., more/new work, overdependence on technology, and workflow issues). Additionally, new UACs not just related to CPOE but to all aspects of EHR use have emerged over the last decade. We describe six new categories of UACs in this blog and then conclude with three concrete policy recommendations to achieve the promised, transformative effects of health IT.

1. Complete clinical information unavailable at the point of care

Adoption of EHRs was supposed to stimulate a tremendous increase in availability of patients’ clinical data, anytime, anywhere. This ubiquitous increase in data availability depended heavily on the assumption that once clinical data were routinely maintained in a computable format, they could seamlessly be transmitted, integrated, and displayed between health care systems’ EHRs, regardless of differences in the developer of the EHR. However, complete clinical information on all patients is not yet available everywhere it is needed.

Ian Morrison Interview at Health 2.0

Dec 3, 2016

By JESSICA DAMASSA

Hi, today on THCB I’m glad to introduce Jessica DaMassa a new face who’ll be doing many more interviews in the future, focusing on thought leaders in health and health technology.–Matthew Holt

Ian Morrison is probably the best known health care futurist in America, despite being a Scottish-Canadian-Californian. He gave the keynote at last Fall’s Health 2.0 Conference, and gave his thoughts about the role of technology in the future of care delivery.

Medicaid, Meet Indiana

Dec 2, 2016• 17

By JONATHAN HALVORSON

We will soon have a Vice President and a head of CMS who hail from the great state of Indiana, and are proud of what they’ve done with Medicaid there through the Healthy Indiana Plan. Seema Verma, the proposed CMS Administrator, is credited with being the architect of Healthy Indiana, and Mike Pence, the Vice President-elect, presents Healthy Indiana as one of the signature achievements of his term as governor of that state.

It is too early to tell if the program will be enough to raise Indiana up the ranks on health and healthcare from the bottom quintile (1, 2). However, since Republicans have run the table with Congress, the White House and soon the Supreme Court, we can reasonably conclude that the future of Medicaid in America is going to look more like Indiana.

That doesn’t mean that income-based Medicaid eligibility will dramatically change. Pence was one of the few Republican governors who took advantage of the opportunity to expand Medicaid eligibility up to 138% of poverty, and President-elect Trump has promised, in his emphatic way, that people will not be denied healthcare coverage in his administration. Some Republicans in Congress have different ideas, however, and the outcome is not at all clear yet.

Keeping Medicare’s Promise

Dec 1, 2016• 13

By ANDY SLAVITT

screen-shot-2016-10-14-at-8-43-48-am So, you decided to come to Washington to see what was new and how things might be changing… I am sure we did not disappoint.

I am honored to have been invited to address this summit, which I’m sure will be your first of many. It’s a certainty that making our delivery system work better for patients and spend money more wisely will always be in season no matter which party is in charge. And, while many new approaches and changes may come to bear, ultimately health is not a partisan issue.

However, I do hope you all think of a better name– the MACRA MIPS/APM summit sounds like the world’s hardest word scramble. We’ve tried to make MACRA more accessible by naming it the Quality Payment Program… something to think about.

Looking at your speakers today, you have gathered some of the most experienced people across the country focused on the most difficult health care problems we as a nation face. Simply put, how to complete the changes we have begun to make the system more patient centered and accountable. So today, I come here to add my perspective to this discussion and continue to ask for your valuable help.

Trump State of the Union

Dec 1, 2016• 3

By IAN MORRISON

New POTUS Donald Trump doesn’t like the White House, it is drafty and was occupied by black people, and so he and his family have decided to stay in New York to run the country on Twitter. The State of the Union address will be a live Twitter event from Trump Tower at 3.00 AM. THCB has received the secret first draft from an anonymous POTUS speechwriter.

Heading to U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinnati, Ohio for a 7pm rally.
Join me! Tickets: https://t.co/HiWqZvHv6M

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 1, 2016

TRUMP

Thank you. We won. We won big. It was huge. And we would have won popular vote except for all illegals voting. Hillary poor loser. Sad.

State of the Union is not strong. Weak. We don’t win anymore, but we will make America Great again!

Priorities: Jobs, Repeal and Replace Obamacare, Immigration and National Security. Already working on them all. I am doing this for you.

Jobs. Will bully CEOs to keep manufacturing in US & throw tax breaks at them. Expect air conditioners to get expensive. Sorry Florida.

Something Not So Terrific

Dec 1, 2016• 70

By MARGALIT GUR-ARIE

The brand new President Barack Obama, whether wittingly or not, invested his entire political capital in reforming health care in America. He gambled and he lost, not because he had nefarious intentions, but because he left the gory details to a corrupt Congress and a shady cadre of lying and conniving technocrats, ending up with something vastly different from what he campaigned on. From everything I’m reading now, Mr. Trump is about to walk in Mr. Obama’s footsteps, and if he does, the results will be unsurprisingly identical.

On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump repeatedly stated that Bernie Sanders forfeited his place in history when he “made a deal with the devil” and embraced the corrupt Democratic Party establishment that fought his candidacy in most abject fashion. Guess what? Mr. Trump seems to be making the same deal with the red version of the same devil. Mr. Trump’s cabinet choices indicate that he is now embracing the ultra-conservative factions of the Republican Party, the same people who actively or passive-aggressively opposed his candidacy. Nowhere is this peculiar and completely unnecessary capitulation more evident than in the beleaguered health care sector.Continue reading…

The Price Is Basically Right

Dec 1, 2016• 28

By NIRAN AL-AGBA, MD

screen-shot-2016-12-01-at-12-19-09-pm

Recently, President-Elect Trump selected Rep. Tom Price, MD to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Suffice it to say, this signals Mr. Trumps’ resolve and commitment to definitively repealing and replacing. Dr. Price has already sunk his teeth into health care reform, having proposed alternative healthcare solutions in every Congressional session since 2009. As a physician myself, I am delighted at the prospect of having another doctor at the helm of HHS. The last physician to lead HHS was Louis Sullivan, MD as part of the administration of George H.W. Bush. Having a physician, who can understand the needs of physicians and patients, representing both in health policy decision making at the federal level gives everyone the best chance for meaningful and successful health care reform.

Dr. Price is a third generation physician and a retired orthopedic surgeon with experience in clinical practice and academia before being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. At his core, he has been a fierce critic of Obamacare. Dr. Prices’ most frequent objection to the ACA is the fact it hinders the ability of patients and physicians to be in control of medical decision making and puts the government squarely between doctors and patients. Amen! He understands the subtle distinction that while expanding coverage may provide insurance, it is in no way akin to delivering patients unfettered access to health care. Continue reading…