Huron Consulting, the very large operational consulting firm, is expanding its health care line of business by acquiring the Studer Group, which does management consulting for health systems, for a whopping $325 million.
Humana reports that providers who are at risk in its MA program have better quality and cost outcomes that those that have more traditional reimbursement.
MedPAC has expressed again its serious concern about the CMS approach to quality reporting, which it views as having an excessive number of measures which are burdensome to report on and often have to little to do with actual meaningful outcomes.
Roper Industries, which has a growing health care line of business, has acquired Strata Decision Technology, which offers data analytics software to hospitals.
Another headsmacker. The Commonwealth Fund, which unfortunately has a tendency to confuse ideology and research, has determined that for rate increases required to be filed for review under the reform law; i.e. those over 10%, medical costs were the primary cause for the requested increase. Really, you don't say.
According to research in Health Affairs, Medicare's quality reporting system for hospitals may have led to lower price increases for coronary artery bypass graft and percutaneous coronary intervention.
The Healthy Skeptic is a website about the health care system, and is written by Kevin Roche, who has many years of experience working in the health industry. Mr. Roche is available to assist health care companies through consulting arrangements through Roche Consulting, LLC and may be reached at khroche@healthy-skeptic.com.