Roji Intel Blog

Theresa Hush 0
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Future of Health CareMerit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS)Quality Payment ProgramValue-Based Health Care
September 19, 2019

Are Patients at Risk when Quality Measures Scale Back?

CMS is now poised to roll back quality reporting requirements in 2021, vastly altering the direction of quality measurement. Simultaneously, CMS will reduce the weight in Value formulas dedicated to quality, transferring the balance to Cost over the next five years. As providers face risk-based reimbursement, what protections are needed to ensure that patients get the right care? Does streamlining the program give providers a pass on quality? And, how do patients choose providers when there is no standardized measurement? In this second in our series on whether Value-Based Health Care is on track to meet its mission, we take…
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Robert McNutt, M.D. 0
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Future of Health CareResearch
July 17, 2019

How the Stock Market Models a Path to Better Research.

The better clinical research is, the better medical care will be. It is so crucial to the future of best medical care that I have highlighted deficiencies of the present conduct of randomized trials (RTs) in previous articles to suggest ways to improve. A system of better research must accommodate studies on any intervention aimed to improve care, including interventions such as a change in practice, any quality or safety plan, or an economic principle such as fee-for-service versus capitation—not just studies of new drugs. In my last article, I coined the term “Gallup Research Medicine” as a model to…
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Evelyn Herwitz 0
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Future of Health CareValue-Based Health CareWomen and Health Care
June 19, 2019

Roji News Roundup: Industry Insights from CEO Theresa Hush

From women’s health care to the future of the Affordable Care Act, Roji Health Intelligence CEO Terry Hush has shared her insights with numerous industry publications in recent months. Here’s a sampling of current articles: Value-based arrangements in ASCs — 3 quotes from an industry CEO Becker’s ASC Review | June 11, 2019 Terry’s predictions, based on 25 years of industry experience, for what to expect for the future of risk-based agreements. Hint: Episodes of care and bundled payments will become increasingly important. The Future of Healthcare: “Make tools available for women so that they can have a real voice…
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Theresa Hush 0
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MedicarePrimary Care PracticesValue-Based Health Care
June 5, 2019

Can Small PCPs Succeed in Medicare’s Primary Care First?

Medicare’s announced primary care models will provide an interesting test of whether financially-motivated primary care practices (PCPs) can improve hospital utilization, the key outcome measure that will determine provider revenues under the pilot. While provider risk for costs of patient care is inevitable for most physicians in the future, providers don’t have the same potential for financial success. That is especially true for PCPs, whose volume and roles in health care have been eclipsed by specialists and industry consolidation. Whether Value-Based Health Care can restore primary care to a central role of coordination—with the potential for cost reduction—is at the…
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Theresa Hush 0
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Consumers & PatientsFuture of Health CareValue-Based Health CareWomen and Health Care
May 1, 2019

Do “Women’s Health Centers” and Services Deliver on Value-Based Health Care?

Women make an astounding 80 percent of health care decisions for themselves and their families. But there’s a disconnect between what women need and how providers have organized health care for them. While Value-Based Health Care (VBHC) is struggling to achieve more value for every health care dollar spent, providers are simultaneously sabotaging women in their customer base. How? This might surprise you: through promotion of “women’s health” services. While providers may have good intentions for offering a dedicated place for women’s health needs, those services have actually fragmented care for women, especially those with more complex conditions. Let’s evaluate…
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Theresa Hush 0
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ACOsPerformance ImprovementRisk
April 17, 2019

Bootstrapped ACOs Facing Risk? Adopt Cost Strategies With Long Term RoI

The experimental phase of Medicare ACOs has been officially declared dead, per CMS. Going forward, ACOs must agree to take on financial risk for expenditures beyond their targets. That’s sobering news for the majority of ACOs still struggling to succeed. The reality is that most ACOs are bootstrapped—light on extra funding and dependent on existing tools to do more. In fact, about two-thirds of ACOs report that funding is their most significant challenge. And that is probably understated, since patient engagement problems (also reported by two-thirds of ACOs) and lack of data (reported by 40 percent) are remedied by solutions…
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Theresa Hush 0
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Consumers & PatientsFuture of Health CareValue-Based Health CareWomen and Health Care
February 27, 2019

How Gender Discrimination Against Women Physicians Handicaps Value and Patient Care

We need to get women’s health care right. This is not a parochial issue, important only to women, and disconnected from Value-Based Health Care. Gender disparity in health care is real, with significant ramifications for outcomes—for the patients, certainly, as well as for providers’ ability to succeed under risk. Just as quality measurement is necessary to improving quality, achieving the triple aim of quality, cost and patient experience must include both measurement and elimination of gender and gender-race impediments. ACOs and providers accept that they must help patients overcome social attributes of health if those patients are to improve. Yet…
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Thomas Dent, M.D. 0
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Future of Health CareMedical EducationPerformance Improvement
December 19, 2018

There’s More to be Learned from Good Results than Bad—and Why It Matters

Becoming a physician requires passing many tests, beginning with premed studies, all the way through residency and, ultimately, board certification. You spend countless hours focused on passing examinations or rotations and learning to avoid pitfalls. As a residency program director, I and my colleagues invested considerable effort to determine which residents were struggling and to develop strategies to help them. We focused on finding deficiencies that would impede them from being excellent physicians. A fellow faculty member ran a Morbidity and Mortality conference that he nicknamed the “boo-boo” conference. This process of identifying and analyzing medical errors produced competitive physicians,…
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Theresa Hush 0
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ACOsPopulation HealthValue-Based Health Care
November 14, 2018

How to Involve Physicians Effectively in ACO Population Health

In a recent post, we addressed the many types of population health initiatives and some guidelines for creating the most benefit. Now let’s take a closer look at one of those guidelines: integrating population health into regular or routine care of patients—specifically, with greater involvement and communication by the patients’ physicians. ACOs and their participating physicians have an opportunity to break with the historical obstacles between the physician’s employer organization and the physician, especially in hospital-directed ACOs. Even in physician-led ACOs, working seamlessly with physicians to achieve better health for ACO patients is key to achieving both quality and cost…
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Theresa Hush 0
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ACOsBundled PaymentsFuture of Health CareSpecialty PhysiciansValue-Based Health Care
September 26, 2018

Five Strategies for Specialists: How to Safely Navigate ACO Arrangements

Amidst the furor over health care access and affordability, most consumers believe that the exceptional quality of America’s health care is due to specialty medicine. But Value-Based Health Care may well dramatically change specialty practice by putting specialists under financial risk arrangements. That’s because the most prestigious and flourishing providers in health care are also the most expensive for ACOs and health plans. That makes them a target for cost control. We have spoken about the need for ACOs to evaluate specialists carefully and ensure that specialists have input into ACO assessments of their cost and quality. Here we address specialists…
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