David Harlow

There's a new index in town. Today's entrant is the EveryMove 100, a ranking of health plans across the US "based on how they engage with and empower consumers to manage their own health." according to the presser.

Managed Care Magazine recently ran a story on the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Alternative Quality Contract, which serves as a model for the ACO program under the Affordable Care Act. Check it out: Bay State Blues Combine Global Payment With Quality Metrics. The author of the piece, Joe Burns, contacted me as well as others in Massachusetts for comment.

A couple of recent wellness-related headlines caught my eye.

When CMS recently released hospital chargemaster and payment data for the 100 hospital codes most frequently billed to Medicare, there was much written and said about the significance of the data release.

So just about everyone is pretty pumped about the White House announcement of its new open data policy.

As part of the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General's current focus on nursing facilities, the OIG recently released a report entitled: Skilled Nursing Facilities Often Fail To Meet Care Planning and Discharge Planning Requirements.

A new Press Ganey white paper highlights an association between HCAHPS performance -- patient experience scores -- and lower rates of readmission.

Much has been written and said about the effect of the election on the implementation of federal health reform initiatives.

I spent a couple days this week at the annual meeting of the Medical Group Management Association, in San Antonio. As always, the hallway conversations, chats with vendors in and around the trade show booths, and the twitter back channel were among the most interesting parts of the experience.

Financial incentives are often a reasonable way to evoke desired behavior change.