News
The Department of Defense has been testing patient-centered medical home models longer than most payers in the Military Health System, which could offer lessons in team-based care for civilian providers, according to researchers writing in Health Affairs.
Health plans are evolving into customer-oriented organizations as a result of the Affordable Care Act and requirements for transparency and more value. One way insurers can help their customers is to tie together their front- and back-end systems to focus on the consumer's needs and experience, according to Dell Services.
Perhaps more than ever before, payers are trying to encourage lifestyle changes in their most at-risk members, sometimes bypassing providers with the opportunities of the Internet and mobile technology.
The lure of data analytics is strong, but providers need to slow down in order to get the most out of it and not undermine what they're trying to accomplish with it.
Areas in which a few health insurers are concentrated can put independent physicians or small practices at a disadvantage because they don't have the muscle to negotiate from a strong position with the dominant payers, the American Medical Association said in a report.
One of the most difficult goals of health reform is price transparency -- and one of the biggest uncertainties is whether more transparency will necessarily lead to higher value.
More throughput for ERs means more dollars for a hospital's bottom line.
Now that the health insurance exchanges and other parts of the Affordable Care Act are being rolled out, providers, payers and other organizations are eyeing what it will take to keep making progress in 2014 and beyond around health reform.
Gov. Dannel Malloy said the rollout of Obamacare in Connecticut has been a success -- but it would be a bigger success if the federal health marketplace weren't doing so badly.
While a handful of states said they would not expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, all state Medicaid programs are experiencing some transformation.