KPMG releases a report on the ongoing transformation of the United States’ health care system, which affects payers, providers and patients. The firm gives its perspective on the forces driving the transformation and on what responses are needed by participants if they are to continue to be successful.
Can all the public reporting on provider quality and cost performance actually be used by consumers to make good choices for their health care services? That is the question explored in a Health Affairs study and the research gives a positive answer.
Another excellent paper from the Congressional Budget Office is issued, this one on Medicare’s demonstration projects on value-based payments to providers. Once again, the demonstrations had very mixed results, with only one demonstration generating savings for the Medicare program.
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality examines the supposed mechanisms by which public reporting of provider performance on quality measures will improve outcomes and details the evidence which supports or fails to support that theory.
Obesity is often fingered as a leading cause of health care spending and health spending growth. It also causes significant personal discomfort to those who are overweight. A pair of articles in the NEJM describe the outcomes of interventions to help patients lose weight.
A Press Ganey report describes trends in patient satisfaction for hospitals, outpatient departments, emergency rooms, physicians and home care and lists top priorities for patients in improving their experience of care.
Massachusetts Special Commission on Provider Price Reform has released its momentous report on how to address the surging health care costs in the state, which appear to be largely caused by “excessive” provider prices and price increases. Someday regulators might learn that the more you regulate, the more you regulate.
A significant trend affecting all of health care in the last decade is consumerism, specifically the effort to engage consumers in managing their health and health care and to make care more patient-centered. A new report from GAO shows how hard these efforts can be when data, in this case data on provider prices, is hard to obtain and give to consumers.