More military spending after they just got.... $igh.
"Obama ‘precision medicine’ plan would be boon to Mass." by Jack Newsham, Globe Correspondent January 30, 2015
“This announcement is really about the first step. It’s an announcement that says let’s fund, at the federal level, a larger initiative that will allow us to find new targets,” Jeffrey Leiden, chief executive of Vertex Pharmaceuticals, said. “It’s not going to be next year, but what we will be able to do once this data is available is mine it for these new targets.”
“The wonderful part about this initiative is that it has bipartisan support,” said Tony Coles, chief executive of Yumanity Therapeutics....
Several top health officials from the Obama administration were present for the president’s remarks, as was Senator Lamar Alexander of Alabama, a Republican, who said he looked forward to learning more about the proposal. Basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar also attended and drew a crowd. According to the White House, he credits his recovery from leukemia to precision medicine.
Alexander is from Tennessee, but... sky hook $wi$h, 'eh?
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Related: Privy to Your Health File
They will let you see the bill:
"Mass. health organizations pledge to change payment model" by Priyanka Dayal McCluskey, Globe Staff January 28, 2015
The movement to transform the way medical care is paid for — by rewarding the quality of care over the quantity — received a big push Wednesday from a national coalition of health organizations, including three major players in Massachusetts.
The newly formed Health Care Transformation Task Force encompasses nearly two dozen providers and insurers. It includes Massachusetts’ largest health system, largest insurer, and largest independent doctors group: Partners HealthCare, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, and Atrius Health.
“The significance of this group for us is seeing payment reform begin to really gain momentum,” said Dana Gelb Safran, senior vice president of performance measurement and improvement at Blue Cross. “It can really put wind in the sails of payment reform.”
Traditionally, providers have been paid under a fee-for-service model, in which they are reimbursed for each patient they see and procedure they perform. The model encourages providers to do as many procedures as they can, without necessarily considering the quality of care.
Newer payment models, known as “value-based” arrangements, reward providers for keeping patients healthy and out of hospital beds, aiming to control costs by cutting unnecessary procedures. Contracts like this usually give providers a set budget to care for a group of patients. Providers can be penalized when they exceed that amount or rewarded when they come in under budget.
Sure looks like rationing to me, and the rewards(?) go to those that save money? Looks like a prescription for non-treatment. What if it is all out of your control?
The members of the new task force have set a goal of putting 75 percent of their businesses into such value-based contracts by 2020.
Blue Cross developed Massachusetts’ first quality-based payment plan in 2008. The plan now covers roughly half of Blue Cross’s commercially insured members and has helped lower the rate of spending growth while improving quality, according to studies.
So we are told.
Data show that in Massachusetts, 34 percent of members with commercial insurance were enrolled in alternative payment models in 2013. Many patients on Medicare, the federal government program for seniors, also are covered under new payment programs known as Accountable Care Organizations, which provide incentives for keeping patients healthy.
Federal officials said this week that Medicare will shift half of its payments to new models by 2018.
“The health care industry has gotten the memo,” said Dan Mendelson, chief executive of the Avalere Health, a Washington consulting firm. “There’s an urgency to improve quality and reduce costs.”
I guess the patient just did, too.
Atrius Health already has a history of using quality-based payment models. Atrius now gets 75 percent of its revenue from such contracts — already meeting the goal set by the new task force.
“We would like to have even more of our patients in that kind of model,” said Emily Brower, executive director of accountable care programs for Atrius Health.
What's the CEO pulling down?
At Partners, a network of 10 hospitals and 6,000 doctors, about half of primary care patients are in value-based contracts.
Partners’ senior vice president of population health management, Dr. Timothy Ferris, said the task force will help set the tone for the future of the health care industry.
“It is really difficult to plan for the future when there’s uncertainty about what the future will bring,” Ferris said. “The importance of this task force is to say we are committed to this path.”
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Related:
"The ranks of older, disabled adults could swell rapidly, the report cautioned, as the number of aging baby boomers increases. Such disabilities mean more Americans losing independence and relying on costly, long-term health services. Which is why researchers in Boston and across the country are redoubling efforts to pinpoint the elders most likely to become disabled, and craft simple exercise programs to stem the downward slide."
Just hit the bottom of this post.
NDU: Care costs can jump in havens of retirees
$ee what the problem is?
