- Choosing Wisely campaign has limited effect, awareness, study finds. Physicians remain largely unaware of the Choosing Wisely campaign, launched in 2012 to curb unnecessary testing and prescriptions, and the campaign doesn't seem to have significantly influenced providers' conversations with patients on low-value care, according to a new study in Health Affairs. The study found that awareness about the campaign increased from 21 percent in 2014 to just 25 percent as of 2017. Meanwhile, the percentage of providers who said it was difficult to discuss low-value care with patients increased from 42 percent in 2014 to 46 percent in 2017.
- Anthem to launch meal delivery service to cut readmissions. Anthem in 2018 will offer Medicare Advantage enrollees home-delivered meals after discharge in an effort to curb nutrition-related readmissions, Alexandra Wilson Pecci reports for HealthLeaders Media. Through the service, eligible enrollees will receive up to 20 meals from GA Foods, which will deliver, unpack, and store the meals. Anthem will provide the service in Indiana, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Ohio.
- CMS to launch pilot test to track Medicare spending under MIPS. CMS said it will launch a pilot test to determine if physicians participating in its Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) are actually lowering their cost of care, Virgil Dickson writes for Modern Healthcare. According to Dickson, the pilot test will assess cost data for eight conditions and procedures to determine if doctors participating in MIPS are reducing costs. As part of the pilot, CMS has used claims data from June 1, 2016 to May 31, 2017 to generate reports for about 17,000 medical practices and invited physician groups to review and provide comment on the reports by November 15. CMS plans to use provider feedback to refine the pilot's selected measures before they are incorporated in MIPS.
From Advisory Board:
- How to drive provider success in value-based contracts. What is missing in many risk-sharing strategies is a thoughtful shift of population management responsibilities to providers in a way that allows them to adapt to new goals and capitalize on their own strengths. Join us on Tuesday, Oct. 31, to learn how plans can delegate traditionally plan-held responsibilities among providers in order to reduce health care costs.
- Innovations in cross-continuum palliative care. Today, the organizations with the strongest palliative care programs are those that successfully extend these services beyond the hospital. But this is no easy feat. Join us on Wednesday, Nov. 8, to learn how provider organizations are providing patients with palliative services across continuum.
- Medicare payment update final rule for hospital outpatient payments for CY 2018. Join us on Friday, Nov. 10, to discuss CMS' changes to hospital outpatient and ambulatory surgical center payments in CY 2018. We'll pay special attention to CMS' changes to outpatient total knee replacement, reducing drug reimbursement under the 340B program, reducing payments to certain nonexcepted outpatient providers, and much more.