March 2012 - Health Affairs - The Network of Care

Adding Seats: The RUC’s Sleight Of Hand

On February 1, the American Medical Association’s Relative Value Scale Update Committee (RUC), Medicare’s primary advisor on physician payment, announced the addition of two seats: a permanent one for geriatrics and a rotating one for primary...

Published Wed, Mar 14 2012 10:55 AM by Health Affairs Blog

Filed under: Payment, Physicians, Primary Care, Health Care Costs, Spending, Medicare, Aging

Implementing Health Reform: A Final Rule On Health Insurance Exchanges

On March 12, 2012, the Department of Health and Human Services promulgated final regulations governing the establishment of the American Health Benefit Exchanges. The exchanges are at the heart of the Affordable Care Act strategy for making health insurance...

Published Tue, Mar 13 2012 11:02 AM by Health Affairs Blog

Filed under: All Categories, Health Reform, Consumers, Policy, Insurance, States, Coverage, Medicaid

The Effect Of Physicians’ Electronic Access To Tests: A Response To Farzad Mostashari

Our recent Health Affairs article linking increased test ordering to electronic access to results has elicited heated responses, including a blog post by Farzad Mostashari, National Coordinator for Health IT. Some of the assertions in his blog post are...

Published Mon, Mar 12 2012 1:20 PM by Health Affairs Blog

Filed under: All Categories, Health IT, Health Care Costs, Spending, Comparative Effectiveness, Technology

What Is Strategy In Global Health Care?

Over the past decade, it has become popular to invoke the term “strategy” in global health. For many NGOs operating in developing world contexts, strategy is synonymous with “vision.” For others, strategy is the set of operating activities that meet a...

Published Mon, Mar 12 2012 9:32 AM by Health Affairs Blog

Filed under: All Categories, Global Health, Personal Experience

How Fast Is Health IT Spreading And What Are The Benefits?

Adoption of health information technology (IT) throughout the health care system is “on the march,” according to Farzad Mostashari, the national coordinator for health IT. Nearly 2,000 US hospitals and more than 41,000 doctors have now met the standards...

Published Fri, Mar 09 2012 9:55 AM by Health Affairs Blog

Filed under: All Categories, Policy, Payment, Health IT, Health Care Costs, Spending, Quality

The Toll Of Preventable Errors: How Many Dead Patients?

Here’s a quiz for Patient Safety Awareness Week (and after): The number of Americans who die annually from preventable medical errors is: . A) 44,000-98,000, according to the Institute of Medicine B) None, thanks to the Institute for Healthcare Improvement...

Published Fri, Mar 09 2012 7:43 AM by Health Affairs Blog

Filed under: All Categories, Policy, Quality, Hospitals, Patient Safety

Examining Public Reporting On Quality And Cost

Public reporting of providers’ performance has been a key development over the past decade in efforts to improve the quality of health care and lower its cost. It’s been widely assumed that by making this data public, underperforming providers will be...

Published Thu, Mar 08 2012 7:35 AM by Health Affairs Blog

Filed under: All Categories, Consumers, Health Care Costs, Quality, Hospitals

Health Spending Post Heads HA Blog February Most-Read List

How much health spending is sustainable? Charles Roehrig’s post addressing this question heads the list of most-read Health Affairs Blog posts for February. Next on the list is a post contrasting Medicare and commercial insurance by Diane Archer...

Published Wed, Mar 07 2012 10:22 AM by Health Affairs Blog

Filed under: All Categories, Health Reform, Blog, Consumers, Insurance, Physicians, Health IT, States, Spending, Medicare

Medicare Hospital Quality Reporting Brings Little Or No Mortality Improvement

Medicare’s seven-year public reporting initiative for hospitals, Hospital Compare, had no impact on reducing death rates for two key health conditions and just a modest effect on a third. That’s the conclusion of a just-released study that raises questions...

Published Tue, Mar 06 2012 4:35 AM by Health Affairs Blog

Filed under: All Categories, Medicare, Quality, Hospitals

Electronic Access For Physicians To Prior Tests Did Not Reduce Costs

Despite the widely held assumption that physicians having computer access to patients’ test results will reduce testing, doctors who have such access to tests in the ambulatory care setting are more likely to order imaging and lab tests. That’s...

Published Mon, Mar 05 2012 1:41 PM by Health Affairs Blog

Filed under: All Categories, Physicians, Health IT, Health Care Costs, Technology

Health Policy Brief: The Prevention And Public Health Fund

The latest policy brief from Health Affairs and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation focuses on the Prevention and Public Health Fund created under the Affordable Care Act. The fund was originally authorized to spend $15 billion over its first ten years...

Published Thu, Mar 01 2012 9:42 AM by Health Affairs Blog

Filed under: Public Health, Prevention, Policy, Politics, Chronic Care, Spending, Obesity

Prevention For A Healthier America

The Prevention and Public Health Fund, created by the Affordable Care Act, is an historic investment toward improving the country’s health and quality of life, reducing health care costs for families and businesses, and increasing productivity so the...

Published Thu, Mar 01 2012 9:34 AM by Health Affairs Blog

Filed under: All Categories, Nonmedical Determinants, Public Health, Prevention, Policy, Politics, Chronic Care, Spending, Obesity

Prevention Funding: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Two years ago with enactment of the Affordable Care Act, our nation was poised to follow a new prescription for health. The world’s biggest spender on health care and a nation whose health system — a $2.7 trillion enterprise — was largely oriented to...

Published Thu, Mar 01 2012 9:23 AM by Health Affairs Blog