Mike Stephens
The U.S. Supreme Court has completed three days of hearing oral arguments as part of the judicial process of determining the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. With all of the controversy and media frenzy it might benefit all of us to step back and put this entire issue in some sort of perspective.
The current shortage of primary care physicians has received a great deal of attention in recent years, but very little has happened to impact or reverse the trend and the problem just continues to get worse.
A great deal of attention has been directed by hospitals and health systems to the evolution of the accountable care organization (ACO) initiative.
In a recent blog post, I discussed a growing trend in patient choice of healthcare providers being based on the cost of services. This has become most apparent in the willingness of private health insurers to provide the insured with provider options based on a "tiering" according to the level of deductibles or co-pays.
Most of the recent efforts to reform our country's healthcare system have been focused on the development of accountable care organizations.
If you want a true picture of just how severe drug shortages are across the country, listen to testimony from several healthcare leaders to members of Congress.
An important report released recently explains that group purchasing is not only a smart business move, it is a powerful tool when it comes to driving down healthcare costs for hospitals.
Healthcare IT is critical as hospitals begin to make the change from delivering volume-based care, to delivering value-based care.
Well, thankfully there has been a quick decision to forget the idea to use tax payer money to assess the doctor shortage issue we have in this country. Guess it took all the negative press for some in Washington to realize the time and money they would spend would be irresponsible.
Some of my colleagues have asked me whether accountable care organizations (ACOs) have a realistic chance of meeting expectations as proposed in the recently-announced regulations from CMS. My answer is that they do not.