Health Affairs

It’s finally over.  After nearly six hours of oral argument over the course of three days, the two cases challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act have been officially submitted to the Justices for decision.

The much-anticipated argument over the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act’s insurance centerpiece, the minimum coverage requirement or “individual mandate,” took place Tuesday morning.   It was an entertaining but messy affair, with several individuals often speaking at once and answers to questions frequently getting lost in subsequent comments and inquiries.   Analogies buzzed dangerously around the... Read the rest of this entry »

On February 24, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) issued the proposed “stage 2” rules for the meaningful use of electronic health records.   Stage 2 unequivocally lays out three bold requirements that are sure to be transformative to the United... Read the rest of this entry »

Adoption of health information technology (IT) throughout the health care system is “on the march,” according to Farzad Mostashari, the national coordinator for health IT. Nearly 2,000 US hospitals and more than 41,000 doctors have now met the standards for achieving meaningful use of health IT, and have received $3.1 billion in federal incentive payments... Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a quiz for Patient Safety Awareness Week (and after): The number of Americans who die annually from preventable medical errors is: . A) 44,000-98,000, according to the Institute of Medicine B) None, thanks to the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s “100,000 Lives Campaign” C) 90,000 D) No one’s really counting The correct answer is, “D,”... Read the rest of this entry »

Public reporting of providers’ performance has been a key development over the past decade in efforts to improve the quality of health care and lower its cost. It’s been widely assumed that by making this data public, underperforming providers will be motivated to improve, and consumers will use the information to pick the highest-quality providers... Read the rest of this entry »

Medicare’s seven-year public reporting initiative for hospitals, Hospital Compare, had no impact on reducing death rates for two key health conditions and just a modest effect on a third. That’s the conclusion of a just-released study that raises questions about the initiative’s ability to improve the quality of care provided by the nation’s hospitals. The... Read the rest of this entry »

AHIP’s Summit on Payment Reform and Delivery Transformation, March 5 in Washington, D.C., spotlights efforts across the country to transform the payment system and care delivery. The Summit showcases initiatives where providers and health plans are partnering with success. The sessions will demonstrate the many lessons learned from these partnerships including gaining provider buy-in, governance... Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s note: For more on the Stage 2 proposed rules defining meaningful use of electronic health records, see Larry Wolf’s Health Affairs Blog post. Late in the day on February 23, 2012, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the preliminary rules for Stage 2 Meaningful Use.  For those not deep in the... Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s note: For more on the Stage 2 proposed rules defining meaningful use of electronic health records, see Ashish Jha’s Health Affairs Blog post. There will be many blogs and news reports, on Health Affairs Blog and elsewhere, about the very-soon-to-be-released Stage 2 proposed rules on the Meaningful Use of electronic health records (EHRs). This... Read the rest of this entry »

With unsustainably high costs and tremendous gaps in quality and patient safety, the health care system is ripe with opportunities for improvement. For years, many have seen quality measurement as a means to drive needed change. Private and public payers, public health departments, and independent accreditation organizations have asked health care providers to report on... Read the rest of this entry »

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently announced that 32 health care organizations from around the country had signed on to the new Pioneer Accountable Care Organization (ACO) initiative, part of a broader push to incentivize ACOs in the Affordable Care act. ACOs provide financial incentives for healthcare teams—including primary care physicians, specialists,... Read the rest of this entry »

One of the initiatives in the Affordable Care Act of 2010 is the expansion of community health centers to provide primary care to millions of newly insured, low-income Americans. The same law promotes the patient-centered medical home model. A community center’s qualifications to be classified as a patient-centered medical home are evaluated through an assessment... Read the rest of this entry »

Spurred by the nation’s federal deficit, unsustainable healthcare costs, and other economic challenges, America’s healthcare system must change from a fee-for-service to a fee-for-value system, challenging all industry participants to make healthcare more efficient, effective, accessible, and affordable. While patients, employers, and payers clearly benefit from lower costs, the fee-for-service system in place since Medicare’s... Read the rest of this entry »

The most-read Health Affairs Blog post for January was Tim Jost’s examination of the first set of briefs filed before the Supreme Court in the litigation over the Constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. The full top-ten list for the month also includes Jerald Winakur’s post on disruptions experienced by many patients during care transitions... Read the rest of this entry »

A belated tip of the hat to two Health Affairs articles included in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s five most influential research articles by RWJF grantees in 2011: Evidence Links Increases In Public Health Spending To Declines In Preventable Deaths, by Glenn Mays and Sharla Smith; and Nurses’ Widespread Job Dissatisfaction, Burnout, And Frustration With... Read the rest of this entry »

November 9, 2011. Time fell back three days ago, leaving me one less hour of daylight to enjoy on a gorgeous Indian summer Wednesday. I’m the attending physician on a busy family medicine inpatient service, and it’s been a long week of patient care and meetings. I rush out of the hospital somewhere near 5 pm,... Read the rest of this entry »

In April 2012 a number of accountable care organizations (ACOs) will begin their contracts with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) under Medicare’s Shared Savings and Pioneer ACO programs. The latest health policy brief from Health Affairs and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation provides an overview of ACOs, their origins, and the current... Read the rest of this entry »

Video of the release event for the January issue of Health Affairs, “Confronting The Growing Diabetes Crisis,” is now available on the Health Affairs Web site.

WHAT:      More than 1,000 health care leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, government officials and others will join the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), Health Affairs, the West Wireless Health Institute and keynote speaker Dr. Atul Gawande, at the Care Innovations Summit. WHO:       Marilyn Tavenner, Acting Administrator,... Read the rest of this entry »