- Report: Most states investing in value-based care. More than 40 states have established a plan to shift to value-based payment models—and 15 of the plans involve multiple payers, according to a new report from Change Healthcare. For the review, researchers assessed public data from May through October of this year, including state and federal resources and reports from health care industry stakeholders. The researchers found that in addition to trying to establish value-based care programs, 23 states have set federally initiated, value-based care goals or requirements that payers and providers have agreed to meet, 17 have developed or are considering establishing ACOs or ACO-like models, and 12 have established or are mulling establishing an episode of care approach. Overall, just seven states have made no movement toward value-based payment models, the researchers found.
- In half the world, PCP appointments last 5 minutes or less, study finds. Appointments with primary care physicians in the 18 countries that represent half of the global population last an average of five minutes or less, according to a study in BMJ Open. For the study, researchers examined data on about 28 million primary care appointments across 67 countries, including the United States. According to the researchers, appointment times ranged from Sweden's average of 22.5 minutes to Bangladesh's average of 48 seconds. In the United States, such appointments averaged about 20 minutes, the report found. The researchers said based on the data, short appointments are linked to polypharmacy, antibiotic overuse, and poor physician-patient communication.
- Hospital quality performance and reporting improved last year, Joint Commission finds. Hospitals have made significant advances to improve quality performance and reporting, with an increasing proportion of hospitals adopting electronic clinical quality measures (eCQMs), according to the Joint Commission's 2017 annual report. For the report, the commission reviewed how more than 3,200 Joint Commission-accredited hospitals performed in 2016 on 15 quality measures, spanning seven categories. The commission found that despite hospitals' strong performance in the seven categories—including a composite score of 98.1% for perinatal care and 92.1% for inpatient psychiatric services—hospitals' overall accountability score declined in 2016, dropping from 93.7% in 2015 to 92.4% in 2016. The commission also found that 470 hospitals submitted eCQM data to the Joint Commission, marking a substantial increase from the 34 hospitals that did so in 2015.
From Advisory Board:
- What is the appropriate scale for a health system? How you can unlock radical growth. Should you aspire to become a $5 billion, $10B, or even a $20B organization? As mega-mergers become increasingly frequent, health system executives ask this question with newfound urgency. Join us on Monday, Dec. 11, to understand opportunities for radical growth both within and beyond existing markets.
- MACRA, Part 1: How the 2018 QPP Final Rule impacts providers. Join us on Monday, Nov. 20, to hear our early summary of the most important elements of the final QPP regulations for 2018, including key policies in the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and the Advanced Alternative Payment Model (Advanced APM) track.
- MACRA, Part 2: Detailed analysis of the 2018 Final Rule. Join us on Tuesday, Dec. 12, as we take a deeper dive into the final 2018 Quality Payment Program (QPP) policies and offer action items for the short term and long term. We will also help you decode changes to the complex Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and the Advanced Alternative Payment Model (APM) requirements, provide advice on program management, reporting alignment, and how to leverage health IT to achieve success.