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Both the private and public sectors are testing various care delivery transformation models to improve quality, reduce morbidity and mortality, and contain the costs of treatment. The Alliance for Health Reform and WellPoint, Inc. hosted a September 10 briefing to discuss delivery system innovations, Medicare care coordination, and low-spending health care practices.
Rhode Island's Chronic Care Sustainability Initiative (CSI) is a multi-payer patient-centered medical home program in which the one Medicaid health plan and all commercial health plans in the state participate. Hallmarks of the initiative are engaged leadership, mandatory participation but participatory governance, a common contract used by all payers, and investments in health information technology and other support for practice transformation.
This primer providers an overview of certain delivery system reform models that are being examined in traditional Medicare, and explains model goals, financial incentives, potential beneficiary implications, and results so far with respect to Medicare spending and care quality. The primer discusses accountable care organizations, medical homes and bundled payments.
Treating those with multiple chronic conditions, including the elderly and disabled populations, accounts for 30 percent of total U.S. health care spending. Half of this amount is spent by Medicare and Medicaid on behalf of beneficiaries eligible for both programs.
A number of states have used the flexibility of the Medicaid program to develop innovative payment and delivery systems designed to coordinate and improve quality of care. This brief, based on site visits from November 2009 through March 2010, highlights care coordination and related efforts in five states: Alabama, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington state.
On February 15, the Kaiser Family Foundation hosted an event featuring a PBS documentary with former Washington Post correspondent T.R.
With some states grappling over whether to expand Medicaid, and Congress facing big decisions about the future of the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), this briefing reviewed the basics about both programs, and discuss current issues. Co-hosted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Alliance for Health Reform, KFF's Diane Rowland and Ed Howard of the Alliance moderated the discussion.
Expanded health insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is having a major impact on many of the nation’s hospitals through increases in the demand for care, increased patient revenues, and lower uncompensated care costs for the uninsured. This report examines the early experiences with the ACA by Ascension Health, the delivery subsidiary of the nation’s largest not-for-profit health system, Ascension. It finds that, overall, Ascension hospitals in Medicaid expansion states saw increased Medicaid discharges, increased Medicaid revenue, and decreased cost of care for the poor, while hospitals in non-expansion states saw a very small increase in Medicaid discharges, a decline in Medicaid revenue, and growth in cost of care to the poor.
The Medicaid program, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 30, 1965, will reach its 50th anniversary this year, a historic milestone. This report reflects on Medicaid’s accomplishments and challenges and considers the issues on the horizon that will influence the course of this major health coverage and financing program moving forward.
Improving maternity and infant birth outcomes in the U.S. Download Source Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; 2002.
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