Month: July 2012

Recon takes an analytical look behind select developments in healthcare

Readmissions rate fallacy

Nikhil Bhojwani July 20, 2012

Today’s piece in Kaiser Health News that hospitals’ readmissions rates are flat appears to suggest various ongoing efforts to cut readmissions are failing and failing badly. According to the Medicare data used by Kaiser, the readmission rate for heart failure was 24.8% in 2008-10 and 24.7% in 2009-11 giving us the 0.1% decline cited by Kaiser. Comparing 2011 to 2008, this is a 0.3% difference, still not sufficient to convince us that there is a real change. But don’t write off those efforts yet as there may be a silver

Clear Health Alliance: Debut of the for-profit HIV/AIDS special needs plan

James Matheson July 16, 2012

Summary HIV Special Needs Plans (SNPs) offer extra layers of services specialized for the HIV/AIDS patient and can generate attractive savings particularly in reduced in-patient costs A new partnership in Miami-Dade is creating a for-profit model in what has historically been a space pursued by mission-oriented non-profits Recent Florida legislation mandating HIV positive Medicaid members join an HMO specialized in HIV/AIDS sharply expands the potential market for SNPs and was likely critical for the for-profit venture In contact to the condition-specific provider ACO, SNPs are likely better suited for addressing

Rescuing the condition-focused ACO from CMS

James Matheson July 12, 2012

Summary The case for an oncology ACO can be compelling but CMS rules for ACOs within fee-for-service (FFS) make value difficult to demonstrate A new physician-hospital-payer partnership in Florida will test whether the oncology ACO model can succeed outside the CMS rules The payer partner has a limited Medicare position and the hospital partner is reputed to be high priced. Despite these potential issues, there are good reasons to think the partners are well aligned on a growth agenda for the model If the model itself proves out, however, it

Month: July 2012

Recon takes an analytical look behind select developments in healthcare

Readmissions rate fallacy

Clear Health Alliance: Debut of the for-profit HIV/AIDS special needs plan

Rescuing the condition-focused ACO from CMS

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