Physician Workforce and Burnout
We hear a lot about burnout in healthcare these days. To start a conversation about physician and clinician burnout, I like to think back to what the term means from a mechanical perspective: the reduction of a fuel or substance to zero and/or the failure of an electrical device or component due to overheating. You’re either out of gas or you’ve worked so hard as to blow a circuit and shut down – or both.
Clinically Integrated Networks
A clinically integrated network (CIN – sometimes pronounced “sin,” which is why I prefer to spell out the letters, “C-I-N”) is a group of healthcare providers that work together to actively assess and modify services to deliver efficient and affordable coordinated care to specific groups of patients. They share pertinent information and data, creating a high degree of interdependence and cooperation among the clinically integrated providers to control costs and ensure quality, usually via an electronic platform.
TEAM-BASED CARE – The future (and present) of Primary Care
At the Reimagining Primary Care (RPC) Forum this spring, a prevailing theme about how primary care can and should be done in the future was one of team-based care. Our current paradigm of primary care comes with some mismatches, even conflicts to the notion of care delivered by a team, and this leads to challenges in transforming care.
The Future of Primary Care – Some Expert Opinions
At the Reimagining Primary Care Forum this spring, Joel Brill, MD moderated a panel discussion on how to build the future of primary care. Dr. Brill asked the panel what one thing they would change in primary care if they had a magic wand.
CMS Introduces ACO Primary Care Flex Model
The US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, through their Innovation Center (CMMI) announced a new ACO program to go live in 2025 – ACO Primary Care Flex. The hope is to build on the data, experience, and successes they have had with their other models that promote primary care, but with a focus on rural and underserved regions.
Care Management
In this series on the drivers of success in value-based care (VBC), we’ve looked at elements that improve gross revenue and are halfway through the discussion of VBC components that help decrease medical expenses. This installment will tackle the complex topic of “Care Management,” so buckle up and hang on!
Medical Expense Drivers: Access
As more practices and organizations pursue the principles of value-based care (VBC), they look for ways to improve their financial outcomes, the drivers of net revenue. Part 1 of this series focused on some of the main determinants of gross revenue in VBC and how to increase the size of the gross revenue bucket, or pie, depending on how hungry you are. These next installments will speak to the ways of decreasing medical costs, thereby increasing the risked savings to be shared or kept, decreasing the amount of pie eaten by medical expenses, thereby increasing the remainder in the bucket after expenses are paid.
CMS Announces Changes to ACO Reach Model
Last week the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a number of changes to the ACO Realizing Equity Access and Community Health (REACH) model. Changes aim to further advance health equity and increase participation in the payment model.
Advance Care Planning Conversations - What they are and why they matter
More than 90 percent of Americans believe it is important to discuss the treatment and palliative options they would choose to pursue if they were to become incapacitated by medical issues in the future, according to The Conversation Project’s 2018 National Survey. Yet, they also report that only 32 percent have actually conducted these conversations.
The 10 Steps of Pre-visit Planning
The strategies involved in pre-visit planning are meant to streamline appointments, improve communication between patients and providers, increase physician and clinic profitability and enhance the quality of medical care provided at a given clinic.
Advance Care Planning and COVID-19: Preparing for the Unknown
The COVID-19 pandemic has had far-reaching, often unanticipated consequences across every facet of life, from commerce and labor to social life and education. Unsurprisingly, it has also impacted health care; however, its influence has ranged far beyond debates over vaccines and mask mandates.