quality data

In a move that's sure to please few--other than the bean counters at CMS--the agency said yesterday that it will be cutting fee-for-service rates for physicians, while boosting payments for office visits. Office visit reimbursement will go up about one-third, but service reimbursements should drop an average 6 to 20 percent, according to estimates from the American Medical Association. The idea, according to CMS, is to …

Independence Blue Cross (IBC), the Blue plan serving southeastern Pennsylvania, has kicked off a program designed to make it easier for its network physicians to maintain a key board certification. Working with the American Board of Internal Medicine, IBC is supplying neatly-packaged data that supports the ABIM's practice improvement requirement. The program will assist the 906 internists currently participating in IBC's network. To provide the information for ABIM, IBC is relying on the …

In a piece for the new Health Affairs blog, former HCFA administrator Gail Wilensky argues that while value-based competition can help the cause of health reform, it can't drive the entire process. In a recent book, health reform advocates Michael Porter and Elizabeth Olmstead Teisberg put forth new models for improving healthcare transparency. These include the suggestion that providers offer a single price to treat entire conditions, and collect quality data across entire …

The state of Texas has launched a public-private program intended to make healthcare pricing data widely available, to promote the use of electronic medical records and to strengthen the small-business health insurance market. The Texas Health Care System Integrity Authority, which includes consumers, employers, providers, payers and government agencies, will guide the project. The Authority will develop a network for securely exchanging electronic medical records and will also promote …

Squeezing in under a state-mandated October 1 deadline for posting hospital pricing data online, the Minnesota Hospital Association (MHA) has become the latest hospital trade group to provide pricing data on member hospitals. The MHA just launched a new site providing detailed pricing data from specific Minnesota hospitals, offering data for the 50 most common in-patient procedures and 25 most common same-day procedures.

In forcing the issue of price reporting, the state of …

During a speech at the Pittsburgh Business Group on Health, Ann Mond Johnson, president of Chicago-based Subimo, identified employers' responsibilities to their employees if they offer CDHPs instead of traditional health plans. Simply providing the health plans isn't enough: Employers must also make their employees smarter healthcare consumers, which means making sure that they have access to cost and quality data. Ms. Johnson heads a company that compiles publicly-available quality …

Yesterday I wrote about my interview with Mark Hochstetler, M.D., vice president of clinical affairs with the VHA. In the course of our discussion about …

In a recent interview with Mark Hochstetler, M.D., vice president of clinical affairs with the VHA, we discussed the issues of price and quality transparency and the effect that these trends are having on the healthcare industry. There have been quite a few price and quality transparency initiatives lately, driven by the current administration's support of CDHPs. Dr. Hochstetler noted that while this has caused quite a stir in the healthcare industry, it has had very little impact on …

In 2005, a yearlong federal government study paid cancer doctors a combined $275 million for assessing their patient's side effects from chemotherapy. Now many other doctors and lawmakers feel that the study was a waste of money and that its findings will be of no real use to healthcare providers. Chemotherapy providers were given $130 every time they reported their patients' side effects. But HHS Inspector General Daniel Levinson noted, "we identified numerous anomalies and gaps in the …

Throwing fuel into the CDHP fire, WellPoint announced that it will make all of its CDHP products available in all markets to both employers and individuals beginning on January 1, 2007. Execs say that consumer interest in CDHPs led the insurer to make the plans more accessible and estimates that it could save patients up to $400 dollars a year over traditional plans. "More informed consumers can make better health care decisions and improve their health, which can help to …