Accountable care organizations and the allergist: challenges and opportunities.

For decades, health care policy experts have wrestled with ways to solve problems of access, cost, and quality in US health care. The current consensus is that the solution to all three lies in changing financial incentives for providers and delivering care through integrated systems. The currently favored vehicle for this, both in the public and private sectors, is through Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). Medicare has several models and has fostered rapid growth in the number of operative ACOs. At least an equal number of private ACOs are in operation. Whether or not these organizations will fulfill their promise is unknown but there is reason for cautious optimism. Allergists can and should be part of the process of this transformation in our health care system. They can be integral to helping these organizations save money by reducing hospitalizations and improving the quality of allergy and asthma care in the populations served. In order to accomplish this, allergists must become more involved in their medical communities and hospitals.

Implementing clinical and financial collaboration between payers and providers.

An IPA learned three important lessons while implementing a clinical and financial collaboration with its payers: Eliminate mixed messages. Focus on delivery and operational changes, not just payment change. Set realistic expectations and deliver on them.

A model for integrating independent physicians into accountable care organizations.

The Affordable Care Act encourages the formation of accountable care organizations as a new part of Medicare. Pending forthcoming federal regulations, though, it is unclear precisely how these ACOs will be structured. Although large integrated care systems that directly employ physicians may be most likely to evolve into ACOs, few such integrated systems exist in the United States. This paper demonstrates how Advocate Physician Partners in Illinois could serve as a model for a new kind of accountable care organization, by demonstrating how to organize physicians into partnerships with hospitals to improve care, cut costs, and be held accountable for the results. The partnership has signed its first commercial ACO contract effective January 1, 2011, with the largest insurer in Illinois, Blue Cross Blue Shield. Other commercial contracts are expected to follow. In a health care system still dominated by small, independent physician practices, this may constitute a more viable way to push the broader health care system toward accountable care.

Organizational and market influences on physician performance on patient experience measures.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the extent to which medical group and market factors are related to individual primary care physician (PCP) performance on patient experience measures. DATA SOURCES: This study employs Clinician and Group CAHPS survey data (n=105,663) from 2,099 adult PCPs belonging to 34 diverse medical groups across California. Medical group directors were interviewed to assess the magnitude and nature of financial incentives directed at individual physicians and the adoption of patient experience improvement strategies. Primary care services area (PCSA) data were used to characterize the market environment of physician practices. STUDY DESIGN: We used multilevel models to estimate the relationship between medical group and market factors and physician performance on each Clinician and Group CAHPS measure. Models statistically controlled for respondent characteristics and accounted for the clustering of respondents within physicians, physicians within medical groups, and medical groups within PCSAs using random effects. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Compared with physicians belonging to independent practice associations, physicians belonging to integrated medical groups had better performance on the communication ( p=.007) and care coordination ( p=.03) measures. Physicians belonging to medical groups with greater numbers of PCPs had better performance on all measures. The use of patient experience improvement strategies was not associated with performance. Greater emphasis on productivity and efficiency criteria in individual physician financial incentive formulae was associated with worse access to care ( p=.04). Physicians located in PCSAs with higher area-level deprivation had worse performance on the access to care ( p=.04) and care coordination ( p<.001) measures. CONCLUSIONS: Physicians from integrated medical groups and groups with greater numbers of PCPs performed better on several patient experience measures, suggesting that organized care processes adopted by these groups may enhance patients' experiences. Physicians practicing in markets with high concentrations of vulnerable populations may be disadvantaged by constraints that affect performance. Future studies should clarify the extent to which performance deficits associated with area-level deprivation are modifiable.

FTC, DOJ issue statements on clinical integration.

Messenger-model IPAs have a roadmap they can follow to determine whether they are sufficiently clinically integrated to avoid antitrust problems when they collectively negotiate non-risk contracts for participating physicians. Here's how.

Competencias esenciales para el ejercicio básico de la partería 2002 / International confederation of midwives core competencies 2002

En el siguiente artículo, se publica la versión traducida al español del documento elaborado por la Confederación Internacional de Matronas sobre las competencias esenciales para el ejercicio de la partería 2002. Este documento tiene un carácter general, pues las competencias definidas están destinadas a todas las matronas y las asociaciones de matronas responsables de la educación y la práctica de la partería en su país o región, y constituye una pauta orientativa para autoridades gubernamentales y responsables políticos acerca del trabajo de estas profesionales (AU)

Clinical integration model may offer new contracting option for IPAs, medical groups.

A California IPA recently completed a two-year journey that led to the early-stage development of what is believed to be the first "clinically integrated" IPA. The new model allows the group to move away from capitation to FFS, but still negotiate collectively for its physicians.

Managed care and market power: physician organizations in four markets.

Physicians and other providers have responded to the spread of managed care by adapting structures and strategies to accommodate or resist the pressures exerted on them to reduce costs. In this paper we examine how physician organizations have evolved in four markets and whether their features represent attempts to improve efficiency or resist change. The strategies adopted by physicians in terms of alignment with other providers and development of independent medical management capabilities appear to be sensitive to opportunities to reap cost savings and the competitiveness of physician, hospital, and health plan markets.

Pharmacy risk: is it in your future?

This article discusses how Sutter Health's affiliated medical groups and independent practice associations (IPAs) prepared for entering a pharmacy risk agreement. It should serve as a primer for those providers contemplating pharmacy risk and is written in lay terms. Providers who expect not just to survive, but to thrive, in a capitated environment must approach pharmacy risk agreements with extreme caution.

An evaluation of pharmaceutical management and budget holding in Pegasus Medical Group.

AIMS: To describe and evaluate pharmaceutical management, including budget holding, in Pegasus Medical Group (Pegasus), to determine savings being achieved, to analyse variation in prescribing behaviour and to compare the findings with national and international experience. METHODS: Trends in pharmaceutical expenditure of the 150 Pegasus' 208 members who had a continuous prescribing record for the three years ending December 1996 were compared with national trends. Expenditure per member, per consultation and per item were also analysed. RESULTS: Pegasus has implemented a comprehensive and classical pharmaceutical management strategy. This includes active personalised feedback, information sharing, peer review groups and information system development, all within an incentive framework of retained savings for new services. Although about 5% savings of total pharmaceutical expenditure were identified by the above method, the real level may be higher. Wide variation between members in their prescribing behaviour was explained almost entirely by the volume rather than the price of the drugs prescribed. Targeting of the volume issue is therefore likely to have a much more significant effect in reducing inappropriate variation. CONCLUSION: The results indicate that the achievements of Pegasus, as for other independent practitioner associations, go far beyond the modest level of pharmaceutical savings achieved. These include the development of a substantial infrastructure, peer review processes, new internal and external relationships and accountability for the management of both quality and cost in what may be styled clinical governance. Such achievements put Pegasus and other independent practitioner associations into a strong position to take on new initiatives including integration with secondary care.

Strength in numbers.

When Houston-area physicians realized managed care was not an aberration that would soon disappear, they decided to take matters into their own hands. After years of the gatekeeping, preauthorization, and reimbursement hassles that took away physicians' control of patient care, the Harris County Medical Society formed a physician-owned integrated health care delivery system complete with its own insurance company.