Hospitals to Project Opportunities and Financial Risks of Reform Using New Premier Healthcare Alliance App
Premier healthcare alliance, 704-816-5797
A new app accessible in the ™ integrated performance platform provides hospital-specific estimates of the impact of health reform on their organizations.
Now that the Supreme Court has upheld the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) with reforms to be implemented according to the law’s aggressive timetable, providers can use Premier’s ReimbursementFocus™ app to project differences in payment from 2012 to 2019, with and without the policy changes mandated by the reform law.
ReimbursementFocus includes the financial impact of recently passed healthcare legislation separate from the ACA, such as sequestration as put forth by the Budget Control Act of 2011, reduction in bad debt reimbursement as established by the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012, and loss of Medicare dependent hospital status at the end of federal fiscal year 2012.
“This app translates high-level policy into actionable information,” said Keith J. Figlioli, senior vice president of healthcare informatics for Premier, which ranked 59 on the 2011 . “It estimates the financial impact of reforms by year and by policy while showing which quality deficiencies are leading to those impacts. This offers Premier members a road map to mitigate or, in some cases, reverse a potential negative consequence.”
Information on hospital characteristics and performance released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is also incorporated into the app. This includes wage index, disproportionate share hospital, indirect medical education, outlier adjustment factors, and Hospital Compare hospital-acquired conditions and readmission rate data.
Information from Premier’s clinical, financial and operational comparative databases, containing 1 in 4 patient discharges and close to $43 billion in annual purchasing data, will be used in the instances where federal data does not exist. Files are preloaded with hospital-specific information and are customizable so users can test different scenarios like changes in their performance or future legislation.
All of Premier’s quality, safety, labor and supply chain apps will be easily accessible in PremierConnect, the world’s largest virtual healthcare community. By having them on the same platform, providers can make decisions based on a combination of healthcare information. This technology platform allows providers nationwide to interact as one in communities of common interest, sharing learnings, data and strategies based on thousands of patient outcomes that can be used to benefit treatment anywhere. It also supports new methods of delivering care required by health reform, including accountable care.
Premier members use a number of data-driven, evidence-based resources to stay ahead of reform and engaged on changes impacting their facility's clinical and financial health, including:
In addition, ReimbursementFocus contains inpatient prospective payment system (IPPS) standard payment amounts, update factors such as documentation and coding adjustment and hospital characteristics from the impact file released with the fiscal year 2012 IPPS final rule. This includes market basket and multifactor productivity percent changes for IPPS and other payment systems.
Premier alliance members can also access materials such as a detailed summary of the ACA, Congressional Budget Office spending estimates, and more with ReimbursementFocus.
Premier is a performance improvement alliance of more than 2,600 U.S. hospitals and 86,000-plus other sites using the power of collaboration and technology to lead the transformation to coordinated, high-quality, cost-effective care. Owned by hospitals, health systems and other providers, Premier operates a leading healthcare purchasing network with more than $4 billion in annual savings. Premier also maintains the nation's largest clinical, financial and outcomes database with information on 1 in 4 patient discharges. A world leader in delivering measurable improvements in care, Premier works with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., Premier also has an office in Washington. . Stay connected on , and .