The American journal of managed care
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Multicenter Study Controlled Clinical Trial
The financial impact of team-based care on primary care.
Although team-based care can improve coronary heart disease (CHD) risk factors and is considered cost-effective from a healthcare system perspective, little is known about the financial impact of team-based primary care for secondary prevention of CHD. The purpose of this study was to define the impact of team-based care for CHD on utilization, costs, and revenue of a private primary care practice. ⋯ The findings from this study are consistent with other economic analyses of team-based care and suggest that payment for care must be restructured if patients are expected to enjoy the benefits of team-based primary care.
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Current alternative payment models (APMs) that move away from traditional fee-for-service payment often have explicit goals to reduce utilization in episodic settings, such as emergency departments (ED). We apply the new HHS payment reform taxonomy to illustrate a pathway to success for EDs in APMs. Despite the unique challenges faced by EDs, a variety of category 2 and 3 APMs may be applicable to EDs in the short- and long term to improve efficiency and value. ⋯ The goal of payment and delivery reforms in ED care is to improve population health across the continuum of acute and longitudinal care. In order to deliver cost-conscious care, ED providers will need additional resources, expanded information, and new processes and metrics to facilitate cost-conscious decisions. Improved availability of electronic information across settings, evidence generated from developing and testing acute care-specific payment models, and engaging acute care providers directly in reform efforts will help meet these goals.
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Since 2009, federal policies have incentivized medical organizations to provide medical record access to patients. We sought to track personal health record (PHR) adoption and differences by sociodemographic group over time. ⋯ During a 4-year period in which federal policies incentivized medical organizations to give medical record access to patients through PHRs and electronic portals, rates of PHR use increased rapidly in all sociodemographic groups. However, a digital divide remains evident, linked to Hispanic ethnicity and lower income.
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Interventions to improve medication adherence are effective, but resource intensive. Interventions must be targeted to those who will potentially benefit most. We examined what heterogeneity exists in the value of adherence based on levels of comorbidity, and the changes in spending on medical services that followed changes in adherence behavior. ⋯ There is important heterogeneity in the impact of medication adherence on medical spending. Clinicians and policy makers should consider this when promoting the change of adherence behavior.
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To determine the opinions of US hospital leadership on the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP), a national mandatory penalty-for-performance program. ⋯ The HRRP has had a major impact on hospital leaders' efforts to reduce readmission rates, which has implications for the design of future quality improvement programs. However, leaders are concerned about the size of the penalties, lack of adjustment for socioeconomic and clinical factors, and hospitals' inability to impact patient adherence and postacute care. These concerns may have implications as policy makers consider changes to the HRRP, as well as to other Medicare value-based payment programs that contain similar readmission metrics.