Magazine/Newspaper
Hospital trustees considering a merger or other affiliation should ask themselves if they are treating a short-term problem with a long-term solution. In the din of experts' predicting the decline and fall of the independent community hospital, trustees may feel obliged to prescribe medicine…
Bundled payments are becoming more attractive to the health care industry as providers learn that they can improve patient care while decreasing its cost. CMS commissioned a bundled payment model called the Acute Care Episode demonstration only three years ago, which since has gained traction and…
When patients are given decision aids, such as educational booklets, DVDs, or interactive tools, to help them make treatment choices, they are more knowledgeable and satisfied with their care. But the use of such aids as part of 'shared decision making'—a communication approach that seeks to…
At the 2012 American Public Health Association annual meeting, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation spoke with Richard Umbdenstock, president and chief executive officer of the American Hospital Association, on ways to integrate health and health care. They asked the following questions: What is an…
Are the salaries of employed physicians sustainable? That depends on how health systems and physicians respond to looming rate adjustments and to meeting their collective needs. Deteriorating economics are driving physicians who originally selected entrepreneurial private practice to become…
One of the most vital strategies in the current health care environment is physician-hospital alignment. Many physicians perceive 'alignment' to be synonymous with employment, likely a result of the strategies of the 1990s, when it almost always meant physician employment. No longer is employment…
In an Oct. 17 webinar presented by Becker's Hospital Review, Scott Becker, a partner at McGuireWoods, Chicago and publisher of Becker's Hospital Review, commented on a dozen of the most pressing issues facing hospitals and health systems today. The topics discussed included:
The Affordable Care Act enacts a new payment system for private health plans available to Medicare beneficiaries through the Medicare Advantage program. The system, which is being phased in through 2017, aims to 1) reduce the excess payments received by private plans relative to per capita spending…
Using key metrics, MaineHealth gauges its impact on population health The board's challenge--what does it mean to improve the health of a population- was a reasonable request given the system's vision of making its communities 'the healthiest in America.' And the board believed that…
A recent article from the Los Angeles Times looks at how the traditional doctor-patient relationship is evolving into one based on patient-centered care. According to the article, the doctor-patient relationship will change by: