Roji Intel Blog

Theresa Hush 0
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Future of Health CareMACRANarrow NetworksPerformance ImprovementValue-Based Health Care
November 1, 2017

Providers Should Believe in Health Care Cost Control Now—If They Want to Stay in Business

Despite MACRA and other Value-Based Health Care efforts, many health care providers believe that controlling health care costs is impossible to do. They cite lack of comprehensive data about their patients and where they obtain services, and lack of control of patients’ decisions. But the real issue that providers have with cost control is much simpler: Why give up revenues under Fee for Service by reducing volume of services? That system has rewarded them well, fueling the growth of consolidated health systems, technology expansion and purchase of physician practices by ensuring a patient base. Controlling costs is now a relatively…
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Robert McNutt, M.D. 0
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Future of Health CareMedical Decision-MakingPatient Empowerment
October 25, 2017

Medical Treatment Should Be Based on More Than Just “Doing Something”

Memory is malleable. This was made quite clear to me at my recent 50th high school reunion. Despite my fallacious recollections, I could not dispute the data of my forgotten activities, awards and foibles captured in pictures and written comments in my high school yearbook. Then there were the comments about my behaviors “back then,” interpreted or misinterpreted by my former high school comrades. These conversations reinforced for me how difficult it is to correctly intuit the motives and thoughts of others, when my own are occasionally tarnished or refurbished. None of us can truly read another’s mind. Even if…
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Theresa Hush 0
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Future of Health CarePatient EmpowermentPerformance Improvement
October 11, 2017

If Federal Policy Can’t Improve Health Care, What’s Next? 5 Trends to Track

Health care has been extraordinarily resistant to change. Escalating costs have been at issue since the early 1980s—think about it!—but continue to rise unabated. Ask anyone participating in the system, be they physicians or other health care providers, payers or patients, and you will be inundated with complaints about health care economics, outcomes or processes. If you ask most health care executives about the future, chances are you’ll be met with a shrug. The fact is, however, that an undercurrent of change is already beginning to transform health care. It is gaining momentum, but the health care system and providers…
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Robert McNutt, M.D. 0
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Future of Health CareMedical Decision-MakingPatient EmpowermentPerformance ImprovementPersonalized Medicine
October 4, 2017

Physician-Patient Interaction: Where We Should Begin to Measure and Improve Medicine

Data is not always the path to identifying good medicine. Quality and cost measures should not be perceived as “scores,” because the health care process is neither simplistic nor deterministic; it involves as much art and perception as science—and never is this more the case than in the first step of that process, making a diagnosis. I share the following story to illustrate this lesson: we should stop behaving as if good quality can be delineated by data alone. Instead, we should be using that data to ask questions. We need to know more about exactly what we are measuring,…
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Theresa Hush 0
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Future of Health CarePatient EmpowermentValue-Based Health Care
September 27, 2017

Redesigning Health Care for the New Consumer

A consumer-driven culture shift is emerging in health care that will change the dynamics of health care purchasing decisions and impact providers’ bottom line. It is being fueled by policies that are increasing the share of health care expenses paid by consumers. Benefit plans with higher deductibles and copayments, choices narrowed to providers who demonstrate lower cost, restriction of medical services, and higher percentages of premium sharing are just some of the tactics used to control and redistribute costs from health care payers to consumers. Much of the discussion focuses on the need for consumers to be “better purchasers” of health…
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Theresa Hush 0
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Future of Health CareMACRAMerit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS)Performance Improvement
September 20, 2017

Physicians Aren’t Engaged in Performance Because Measure Results Aren’t Real

According to management guru Peter Drucker, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t fix it.” Quality measurement and reporting have been rooted in similar reasoning. The idea is that we find out what’s wrong, and then we launch programs to improve it. That’s the linear route mapped out by Medicare starting with Meaningful Use, PQRS quality reporting, Value Modifier comparisons, and moving into current MACRA MIPS and APMs. But physicians have known something for a while that others have been unwilling to accept: quality reporting measures don’t give you a foundation for improving outcomes. Why? Because performance measurement does not…
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Theresa Hush 0
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Academic Medical CentersFuture of Health CareMACRAValue-Based Health Care
September 13, 2017

Can Academic Medical Centers Be a Force for Health Care Reform?

Can Academic Medical Centers (AMCs) survive Value-Based Health Care and its metamorphosis to financial risk? That’s the question many industry watchers have been asking for several years, as margins have slimmed and some university-based programs have sold off their facilities and physician groups to private interests. But a number of economic and policy impacts are generating greater urgency regarding the status of AMCs, threatening their ability to continue their historical three-part mission of teaching, research and specialized patient care. While AMCs have been targeted as “high rollers” by those seeking to control health care costs, we should be very concerned…
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Theresa Hush 0
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Alternative Payment Models (APM)Future of Health CareMACRAMerit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS)Performance ImprovementQualified Clinical Data Registry ReportingValue-Based Health Care
August 16, 2017

How to Evolve MACRA MIPS Quality Reporting for Better Physician and Patient Value

Critics are pushing back against Medicare quality reporting, deeming it burdensome and time-consuming to meet confusing quality measures. One survey asserts that barely a majority feel knowledgeable about MACRA or prepared to achieve long-term success. Indeed, CMS is pulling back on program requirements, with the stated desire of making it easier for physicians. So, here's what should be examined—especially when discussing Value-Based Health Care: Does MIPS Quality Reporting meet the benefit test for the effort expended by physicians and their staff? If the point of Quality Measurement and Reporting is to improve care for patients, can it fulfill that potential?…
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Robert McNutt, M.D. 0
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Future of Health CarePatient EmpowermentResearch
August 9, 2017

How to Recognize “Fake” Medical News — And Why It Matters

Is coffee good for you? A recent headline suggested that people who drink coffee live longer. Sounds great to me. I drink a lot of coffee, so maybe I will be immortal. But, wait, another report links coffee to cancer. Dang. Estrogens were once touted as a life saving elixir for women of elegant ages, until these hormone supplements were linked to increased cancer risk. Wine will either add to your life expectancy or increase chances of breast cancer. But if you are married and have cancer, your outcome is better; you live longer (and can drink more wine?). Eggs…
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Robert McNutt, M.D. 0
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Future of Health CareMedical Decision-MakingPatient Empowerment
July 26, 2017

It’s Not What We Don’t Know That Hurts Us: It‘s What We “Know” That Isn’t So

Making a decision is a—or really—“the” fundamental activity of life. The decisions we make, the consequences of those decisions, our feelings about the consequences, our interpretation of whether we made a good or bad decision based on those consequences, in total, form the basis of our life’s experiences, and, often, how we decide the next time. My children used to say, “Duh,” to my muttering an obvious observance like, “It sure is hot today,” because the temperature just hit 100 degrees. The opening sentence of this blog may seem so obvious that it may trigger a similar response. Making a…
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