Blog and Whitepapers
Recon takes an analytical look behind select developments in healthcare
Cigna and Samsung: assembling a “global account”-based business model for mobile
Samsung and Cigna have agreed to a multi-year development alliance for health applications for the Samsung smartphone. The partners will initially focus on content (access to the health-related tips and articles Cigna already offers its customer base). Ultimately, the partnership will “connect individuals with caregivers, doctors and hospitals to improve health and wellness globally.” So far, the announcements have been silent on any exclusivity. In our view, the content deal is a sideshow: health and wellness tips are highly commoditized and an insurer an undifferentiated supplier for this content. I
Staked out territory by Massachusetts hospital systems
In 2011, we would tell our payer clients (tongue firmly ensconced in cheek) that the answer to all questions was “private exchanges.” In 2012, the punchline changed to “narrow networks.” In 2013, what is not a joke is that payers and health systems are really having to grapple with difficult strategic choices on partnerships, affiliations and M&A relating to facilities and medical groups in order to actually deliver on the value promise of narrow networks (higher value care).Two key inputs into these choices are: The geographic catchment area of each
Marrying into the right family: the bets underlying United’s revenue cycle management joint venture with Dignity Health
Market for outsourced revenue cycle management could be big The revenue cycle management (RCM) vendor industry is about $2.0B for hospitals and $11 billion for physicians today. The market is constrained because most providers do their own RCM. Vendors only have a ~10% penetration among hospitals and a 25% penetration among physicians (implying that the potential combined hospital and physician market is $60-70B). However, RCM as a function is getting more complex and outsourcing could quickly start looking more attractive: Value-based contracting models raising the stakes in documentation, reporting, benchmarking,
Declining value of the EMR walled garden? An emerging signpost from Cleveland Clinic
Quick follow-up to our post about the Epic-eClinicalWorks deal: Today’s Healthcare Informatics has an interview with Martin Harrison, CIO of Cleveland Clinic, was asked what is the biggest strategic IT challenge right now. His answer? The challenge element is partly being driven by the complexity of the challenges in this value-driven world. So all the care providers belonging to this collaborative probably will not belong to the same organization. So the biggest challenge to my mind right now is the effectiveness of interoperability. We talk about it a lot, but
Change in tactics or change of heart? Speculations on the eClinicalWorks–Epic interoperability announcement
Epic is famous for its intense focus on interoperability across its own systems coupled with its conservatism regarding interoperability with other EMRs. In 2012, KLAS said Epic has the “deepest data sharing of all the vendors” across its own practice and hospital EMRs (see this example in which Cleveland Clinic and neighboring system MetroHealth — both on Epic — have put interoperability in place). But when it comes to non-Epic systems, customers must work through defined “exits” to the Epic system (“we don’t let anyone write on top of our
Metrics alone will not unleash the market: Porter and Lee ignore the demand side to the peril of their proposed strategy
Summary Michael Porter and Thomas Lee have articulated a strategy for fixing healthcare focused on restructuring providers and assessing them based on metrics “that matter to patients” The most compelling example they cite of system-wide improvement (vs. anecdote) is the case of IVF where public outcomes reporting demonstrates widespread and consistent performance improvement However, the IVF story has several unique features which make it an exception rather than a model for improving healthcare System improvement cannot be a matter of supply-side restructuring and outcomes metrics: market forces needs to be
Quiet after the storm: Is there an emerging competitive equilibrium in Ohio?
Summary In August and early September, several Ohio provider systems have picked sides in the competition between Catholic Health Partners and Cleveland Clinic The recently announced Health Innovations Ohio collaboration signals that Catholic Health Partners is playing for the overall Ohio market; however, there is no clear, attractive competitive response for Cleveland Clinic Cleveland Clinic lacks a footprint in populous southern Ohio to match Catholic Health Partners but it is not obvious which systems there would seek an alliance or an acquisition Cleveland Clinic and Community Health Systems joint venture
Strategic “crowd-out” via narrow networks: an emerging case study in Wisconsin
Last week, I argued that, if payers want to secure competitive advantage from improved provider care, they would need tighter, more exclusive alignments with these providers to “crowd out” the free riders (the “free riders” in this case are the other payers who have members being treated by the same providers and who can therefore share in any improvements). Two deals last week suggest a case study of the concept may be developing in southeastern Wisconsin: On September 9, Anthem announced that it will be teaming up with highly ranked
ACO proliferation and provider “all-payer” care models inexorably lead to tighter network strategies
A new study in JAMA (by McWilliams et al.) looks at the Medicare expenditures of patients seeing providers enrolled in the BCBS of Massachusetts version of the ACO (Alternative Quality Contract or “AQC”). The AQC model covers only commercial lives and all of the relevant providers had FFS reimbursement from Medicare during the time of the study (several later became ACO Pioneers). The study tests whether providers rewarded to be more efficient for one pool of patients (BCBCMA commercial HMO lives) will take the same approach to care with other
Making flanks something for the enemy to worry about: the Cleveland Clinic-Promedica deal and the emerging battle for northern Ohio
Summary Earlier this year, Catholic Health Partners, the largest provider in Ohio, signed two deals which put it on a competitive collision course with Cleveland Clinic Cleveland Clinic has few options to further solidify its already strong position inside Cleveland, so it had to look elsewhere for a competitive response With a clinical affiliation with Promedica, Cleveland Clinic can competitively threaten Catholic Health Partners in Toledo / northwest Ohio If Cleveland Clinic’s relationship with Promedica matures into a full affiliation, they could acquire Promedica’s Ohio insurance license, opening a whole
Could the Employer Mandate lead to reduced coverage?
When it comes to employee benefits, employers need to be generous either to attract and retain talent or because it is “the right thing to do”. The recession and jobless recovery has unquestionably reduced the first imperative and it appears now that the employer mandate penalty may perversely be gutting the second. Why? A classic paper in the Journal of Legal Studies (Gneezy, Rustichini 2005) looked at the impact of introducing fines for parents who were late to pick up their kids at daycare centers. Lateness INCREASED. Subsequently when the
Ambidextrous strategy: PART 2 – Scenario Implications
In our last post we introduced two potential scenarios. “Provider bastions” in which buyers of health care services select upfront the network that they will trust to deliver their care in a coordinated manner. “Value-based deconstruction” in which buyers of healthcare choose the site-of-service for every interaction with the delivery system based on incentives built on micro level information about value – outcomes and cost. Obviously there are factors unique to firms that will have a tremendous impact on optimal strategic choices for them. All we do here is raise
Ambidextrous strategy: PART 1 – Payer and provider strategy for two very different worlds
It seems like every day there’s some news outlining strategic actions that various players are taking or other developments with respect to health reform. Here’s a sample of recent news: Employer adopts a tightly limited provider network Customers sign on to private exchange Hospital chain grows through acquisition Insurers boycott state exchange Health systems drop out of ACOs Payer collaborates with provider systems to target Medicaid population All of these represent choices or “bets” that firms are making based on a view of a healthcare world facing clear trends. More
Could a delay in the employer mandate be a boost to government run exchanges?
In 2011 we commented that while the health reform law, the ACA, had several positive intended consequences, it also could spawn several perverse effects and side-effects. Now in an attempt to ward off some of those unintended consequences, the administration has delayed the employer mandate from 2014 to 2015. Reactions range from praise (from the unlikely alliance of Democrats and business groups), derision (from Republicans and right leaning think tanks) and bemusement or befuddlement (across the spectrum). Of course, perturbing a portion of a complex system has ripple effects of
When do you know ACOs are here to stay?
Answer: When they form an industry association! Back in February, a group came together to form a national association for ACOs (NAACOS) to, according to the announcement press release, promote the growth of the model, industry standards, best practice sharing and vendor engagement. What was missing from the press release was fixed on the web site which adds as goal #2: “Participate with Federal Agencies in the development and implementation of public policy”. In other words: lobbying. And, of course, as the model evolves from Medicare to commercial and Medicaid populations, state level policy will also need
Cleveland Clinic’s bold land grab in care improvement: the Community Health Systems deal
Summary The deal locks in an option for Cleveland Clinic to grow its clinical practice transfer business 4x its current size and much larger than Cleveland Clinic’s peers There will be significant challenges to executing given the wide geographic dispersion, Community Health Systems’s mostly unranked facilities and strategy of using the hospital “channel” to drive change in care practice In the long run, the deal will reinforce Cleveland Clinic’s advantage in Big Data (it will take time to realize this) Community Health Systems faces little competition in many markets, potentially
Risk-taking providers in private exchanges: Medica’s “My Plan” private exchange
At a TEDMED conference a couple years ago, I had to write some sample “ask me” questions on the bottom of my ID badge as conversation starters. One of them was “Ask me why PHIX+ACO=:-)” Given the presentations on 3D tissue printers and technologies to help blind people just about see again, I was not surprised to have few takers. However, recent news from Minnesota suggests that others see the potential in combining risk-taking providers with exchanges. Medica – one of the early leaders in private exchanges with Bloom Health
Getting the troubled Highmark-West Penn relationship back on track: an outside-in speculation
Summary Highmark and the West Penn Allegheny Health System (WPAHS) are not aligned on their vertical strategy to counter UPMC in the Pittsburgh market WPAHS can only absorb a portion of Highmark’s care demand now being met by UPMC. So its upside on the success of Highmark’s vertical strategy is capped Highmark would prefer a deal with UPMC if it get reasonable rates: the status quo looks better than the uncertainties of a vertical model build A large share of UPMC’s business still comes from Highmark which makes UPMC vulnerable.
Romance of convenience: perspectives on the IASIS-Aurora joint venture
Summary Two major hospital systems have agreed to a joint venture to explore growth opportunities on a “case by case” basis One system is a major non-profit, the other a PE-backed for profit serial acquirer; their strategies, capabilities and geographies of both partners do not overlap The venture is likely focused on sharing capabilities and allowing each partner to take those back to their core markets Given the complementary skill sets, competitors to either system would be wise to expect upgrades in traditional weak spots * * * A few
Deploying analytics in a healthcare world flooded with data
We live in a society with too much data. In the field of market research, the deluge of data is cited as one of the top challenges leaders face as they search for actionable insights hidden in the data. Healthcare is no different. Information content increases with the amount of data that surrounds us, but so too does the noise. And, unfortunately, noise often overwhelms and obscures information as the volume of data grows. Add to that the operational issues we introduce in managing the flood of data, and we
Readmissions rate fallacy
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
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
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
Transitioning from patchwork to quilt: NY and PA’s path to integrating HIEs at the state level
Last month, NY and PA announced plans for how they will integrate data sharing across local HIEs. The state planning efforts share some key parameters: Roughly equal funding with about $20 million in federal grants Initially targeting the integration of data for about 13 million people (in PA’s case the entire state, in NY’s case the NYC metro area) Using a “thin” umbrella model to knit the various existing local HIEs together into a decentralized model Want community involvement of local doctors, community workers, and payers Beyond those parameters, however, the plans look quite different. NY’s approach: Start
Heartland Health: Marching towards Kansas City with Mayo on its shoulder
Earlier this month, Heartland Health signed a deal with the Mayo Clinic for its doctors to virtually consult cases with Mayo physicians in return for an undisclosed fee. Heartland Health is a regional medical system in northwest Missouri and includes a ~350 bed acute care hospital (Heartland Regional Medical Center) with 200+ medical staff physicians, and the Heartland Clinic with 100 providers in 23 locations. Heartland is now the fifth hospital system to join the Mayo Clinic Care Network (MCCN), a structure launched by Mayo in September 2011. The deal substantially
The Blues system and PHIXs: not standardizing on a single utility
BCBSMN has licensed the platform for its private health insurance exchange (PHIX) and defined contribution product from eHealth (original announcement April 30). For eHealth, which has seen its government systems revenue fall off by $2M year-over-year in the most recent quarter (per Q1 2012 analyst call), the deal will be a welcome addition to its non-commission revenue stream. It also represents a significant in-road into the Blues system (the previous deal with Blues I could uncover was in mid-2010 for licensing the technology behind Premera’s online Medsupp sales). It appears
Towers Watson’s bold move in private insurance exchanges: leapfrog Aon and leave Mercer’s alliance compromised
With its acquisition of Extend Health, Towers Watson has ensured that (1) PHIXs will be a key competitive arena among the major benefits consultants and (2) that it has taken the lead. Extend Health serves 170K members and has annual revenues of ~$50M+, EBITDA margins of ~30% and a growth rate in the most recent reported quarter of 40% vs. a year ago (all taken from the S-1 filing and acquisition press release). Two leading competitors have been publicly discussing their capability building: Aon Hewitt began their exchange in April
CIGNA fills in its Medicare portfolio with Great American acquisition
Last week, CIGNA acquired the Great American Supplemental Benefits from American Financial Group (AFG) for $295M in cash. Per press releases, the key financials for the acquired business are: A few observations on the acquired business: ~90% of the acquired revenue is driven by MedSupp. Public reports suggest 100K-125K MedSupp lives (250K lives total for the acquired business). Historically, AG’s MedSupp lives have been well distributed in the US with the exception of a sizeable position in Texas (the acquired business is Austin-based). The other 10% includes a variety of
Big box retail as health insurance channel: thoughts on the Aetna-Costco deal
Summary Aetna has struck a deal to sell individual health insurance with Costco, the #6 retailer. The deal targets 9 populous states first with more to follow in 2012 While the deal lacks some of the levers of the very successful Walmart-Humana Part D deal, there is real potential for this channel to attract consumers if employers opt-out on a large scale Given that Aetna has some arrangements with Best Buy (the #9 retailer) and an established alliance with CVS (the #7 retailer), it looks like Aetna is building out
Payment reform: some observations on skepticism
There have been some blog posts (here and here) about a discussion on payment reform at the Massachusetts Health Data Consortium last week. While I did not attend, the commentary is provocative and I would like to offer a few observations. The discussion included some critical perspectives on the prospects for implementing payment reform and whether its implementation will really bend the trend. My main point in response to the dialog is that payment reform needs to be understood as part of a dynamic trajectory, a multi-stage game. Couple variations
Franchising specialties: model for breaking down geographic barriers to competition?
Summary Geographic barriers to provider competition are a headache for payers By importing capabilities, specialty franchising could help reduce some of the barriers to cross-geography competition It is too early to tell whether the recent Sarasota-Columbia is a good example of what franchising could do given the rapid growth in capacity for high-end cardiology in the area; it may be more about preserving network status and price point But payers should not assume the model will be a disappointing supplement to provider leverage: Instead, consider encouraging providers with differentiated outcomes
The ASO escape hatch for small group: California says “not so fast”
Next week, the California insurance commissioner will propose legislation to deter small employers from exiting the traditional health insurance market and going self-insured. The legislation will put a floor on the amount of losses an employer must incur with any one employee before the stop-loss coverage is triggered (“attachment point”). This won’t affect larger employers which benefit from the balancing impact of their large numbers and so only need to protect themselves from the most catastrophic risks. The bottom lines of self-insured smaller employers are much more vulnerable to even
Home health’s LHC Group decoupling from the stock market: where is it going next?
The PE firm TPG is reportedly considering investing in LHC, a publicly-held home health agency (LHC announced earlier this year they were exploring strategic options). PE funding could allow LHC to pursue a much bolder strategy in the wide-open post-acute care market. Home health With home health revenues of ~$560M, LHC is #3 behind Amedisys ($1.25B) and Gentiva (~$1.1B) and ahead of #4 Almost Family. These four operate in an incredibly fragmented industry of $70B/year (though most of their attention is on the $20B year Medicare FFS market). The vast
Lumeris, NaviNet and the emerging battle for cloud-based ACO enablement
Summary Administrative clearinghouse NaviNet has been acquired by 3 Blues plans and a provider of analytics capabilities for plans and providers (Lumeris). Both NaviNet and Lumeris appear to need a strategic breakout. The key opportunity is coupling sophisticated cloud-based (=EMR agnostic) analytics with a real time communications platform touching 130K physician offices. If viable, cloud approaches to ACO enablement could reduce the upfront infrastructure cost for providers to go at-risk, therefore allowing smaller scale provider groups to participate in the new economics – an attractive proposition for payers unnerved by
Compete by creating more competitors: the Heartland Health deal and Aetna’s strategic jiu jitsu
Yesterday, Aetna announced a deal with Heartland Health (an integrated delivery system serving northwest Missouri, northeast Kansas and southeast Nebraska) to create a new health plan for the small group market (2-50 employees) for 2 counties in Missouri and 1 county in Kansas. Heartland Health has a ~350 bed acute care hospital (Heartland Regional Medical Center) with 200+ medical staff physicians, and the Heartland Clinic with 100 providers in 23 locations. Most important, recent financial evaluations have given Heartland Health a startling 82% market share in primary service area (!).
Aetna and Best Buy: a new twist on retail in healthcare
Aetna has struck a deal with Best Buy to sell four online coaching programs (fitness, weight management, smoking cessation and stress management) in new 1,200 sq. ft. “health technology departments” in 3 suburban Chicago locations. In these departments, Best Buy is selling a broad range of technologies and tools for fitness, sleep, nutrition and beauty alongside the Aetna programs. The strategy: target Best Buy’s tech savvy customers when they are thinking about health and when they have an expectation to buy (vs. for example being on-line when there is more
“Savings illusion” can become savings reality in the long haul: baby boomers to the rescue
A recent article in the NEJM argues that cost savings from quality improvements are illusory because of the lumpy nature of healthcare capacity. Quality’s impact on utilization is just too small to be captured in a heavily fixed cost environment. Any reduction in utilization results in a trivial savings of direct costs and, more importantly, unchanged fixed costs simply being reallocated across the smaller volume. Cost reduction in a high overhead environment is indeed difficult (ask any of the big process consulting houses). It can be done, though it will
Bubble in acquisition pricing of Medicare Advantage lives?
Several recent acquisitions suggest a rapidly growing valuation on Medicare Advantage (MA) lives. Last August, Healthspring paid about $3.6K per adjusted MA life with its acquisition of Bravo. (My adjustments extract the value of the PDP lives using the CVS acquisition of Universal American PDP lives as a benchmark and for the share of Special Needs Plan or SNP lives which typically have higher utilization levels and higher reimbursement). This past November, there were two major MA acquisitions, both with sharply higher prices. Cigna (CI) bought Healthspring for $3.8B —
XL Health in play: what do the three suitors see?
UPDATE: United buys XL Health! Here’s what we surmised in the original post on this topic: “That leaves United. A leadership position in C-SNPs would fit well with United’s leading position in Medicare Advantage overall, #1 position in D-SNPs and #2 position in I-SNPs. The capabilities would also seem to be readily applicable to the broader Medicare population (given, for example, the potential transfers back and forth across between C-SNP and regular Medicare Advantage). The curious thing is that United dramatically reduced its C-SNP business last year (went from about
Emerging Unintended Consequences of Health Care Reform
In complex system, even small changes can have big, unexpected consequences. These are occasionally beneficial but more often than not have a negative impact. Over the last year we have started to see some evidence for unintended consequences from the health care reform act. Negative impacts that we see are of two kinds: Perverse effects that directly affect the objectives of the act and side-effects that manifest in seemingly unrelated areas (see figure below). It is not the intent here to comment on the overall merits or demerits of
The CIGNA-Healthspring deal: local share key to top-line synergies but still missing from the equation
Summary Provider discounts are a key priority for national accounts – which puts CIGNA (CI) and Aetna at a disadvantage; CI responding in part by trying to get closer to providers A provider collaboration strategy requires a critical mass of patients and provider mindshare. CI does not have it; nor will the Healthspring (HS) acquisition provide it given the limited geographic overlap between the two companies CI must therefore grow share in key markets to capture the deal’s potential provider collaboration synergies (though other synergies are certainly accessible) If CI
Six strategic choices made by CMS in the final ACO rules
1. The final ACO rules largely maintain the demanding economic parameters for mature ACOs (Track 2) found in the originally proposed version (relative, for example, to the original PGP demonstration project): Potential for both downside and upside reward. Maximum shareable savings of 60% (less than in the original PGP demo); and the rewards are limited to an upper bound of total costs. In this regard, the ACO contract payoff locks a lot like your classic “collar” financial option (see graphic below). The starting cost benchmark based on the ACO’s actual
Narrow networks: adoption growing among smaller groups
Kaiser’s latest employer benefits survey offers some interesting data on the adoption of narrow (or high performance) network products. See chart below: Couple of observations: Overall adoption at the firm level appears to stand at almost 20%. The data probably under-represents the share of firms with a narrow network product: firms which have narrow networks in their second or third most common plan would not appear in this data. However, the share of lives in a narrow network product is probably lower: I would think narrow network products are adopted
Private health insurance exchanges and defined contribution: thoughts on Wellpoint’s acquisition of Bloom Health
Why would a health plan want to buy an exchange? Isn’t the only synergy if the owning plan tilts the exchange in their products favor? And won’t that damage the value proposition of the exchange for buyers and see them flock elsewhere? To understand the Bloom Health acquisition, it is important to recognize that the private health insurance exchange (PHIX) space is quite fluid, consisting of three or four distinct market opportunities. (The fourth — capabilities resell — might not really qualify as a PHIX specific opportunity, it is more
The Steward-Tufts deal and the looming threat of provider-led narrow network insurance
The Stewards-Tufts deal announced today will create a narrow network insurance product targeting the small group segment. As reported, members covered by the plan must get all routine care from Steward providers except for complicated procedures and when authorized by a Steward physician. In return, premiums should be 15-30% below other products. Tufts and Steward will share the premiums. Some local market context: Steward Health Care is owned by Cerberus Capital Management is the only major for profit system in the market. The deal follows at the heels of a
A gradual roll-out of ACOs will minimize disruption and resistance
Part of the theory of ACO value creation is trading off more primary care (resulting in better care coordination, fewer missed time bombs, and use of lower cost care options) against reduced use of specialists, ERs and hospitals (few stays, shorter stays). Early results seem to describe substantial promise (although not for everyone who tries the model). Let’s assume this promise will be realized in broader roll-out for the purposes of this post. One fear that is ACOs will drain volume away from unaffiliated medical specialists and hospitals, leading to
Upping in ante in Pittsburgh: the health information exchange arms race
A few weeks ago, UPMC announced an agreement among nine area systems to spend $4M over the next two years to launch a health information exchange called ClinicalConnect. Reportedly, Highmark (and presumably the West Penn Allegheny hospital system it is in the process of purchasing) requested to be a part of the initiative but was refused. Building electronic connections across hospitals – particularly between community systems (such as the non-UPMC participants in ClinicalConnect) and tertiary centers such as the UPMC facilities – helps make transitioning patients easier by making full
Provider incentives in the commercial ACO: retaining a small share of savings in return for future volme growth
Earlier this month, Blue Shield of California announced 2010 results from an ACO partnership with the Catholic Healthcare West hospital system and Hill Physicians. The ACO achieved savings of $20M on a CalPERS population of 41.5K commercial and Medicare lives (where Blue Shield was the secondary payer) — $480 per person or 13% of sponsor costs (average sponsor premium contribution estimated at $3,735 based on press report that $15.5M equaled to 10% of premiums). These results appear to be significantly better than the results of the Medicare Physician Group Practice
Partners’ acquisition of Neighborhood Health Plan: reinforcing the role of community health centers in the care continuum
Much of the public speculation (for example here and here) regarding the acquisition of a local high quality safety net health plan — is it about locking in Medicaid volume? or about doing a “good deed” before regulators make decisions about Partners market influence? – is not very persuasive. Partners is already under intense scrutiny — a program of pushing Medicaid volume to its own facilities would contradict its public promises, exacerbate regulator suspicion and not be very profitable anyway. And if regulators believed Partners has the market power to
The curious absence of payers in public HIEs
Last week, the National eHealth Collaborative published a study of sustainability strategies for 11 leading health information exchanges (actually 12 including the VA). I’ll call these public HIEs to distinguish them from private HIEs – proprietary exchanges among a select group of providers such as an integrated delivery system. Remarkably, payer funding has a relatively small role across the sample: Only 3 report payer funding as an essential part of their current revenue model: Availity (a joint venture among major Blues and Humana), the Rochester RHIO and the Quality Health