Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation aims to cut health-care costs
Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation aims to cut health-care costs
By N.C. Aizenman, Wednesday, January 25, 11:06 PM
The Obama administration touts it as a key solution to the nations runaway health-care spending: a new national center set up by the 2010 health-care law to test and implement groundbreaking ways to cut costs while improving patient care.
On Thursday, a little more than 14 months after the center opened, officials will release a report summarizing its progress: 16 recent initiatives, funded with more than $1.7 billion in federal money, that will involve more than 50,000 providers over the next five years.
The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation is technically limited to experimenting with payment incentives and methods of delivering care within Medicare and Medicaid, as well as the Childrens Health Insurance Program (CHIP). But its director, Richard Gilfillan, said he will work with providers who also see a large share of private patients, to ensure that the models tested are effective for those populations as well.
The sheer number of seniors covered by Medicare and low-income Americans covered by Medicaid suggests that any changes embraced by the doctors and hospitals that serve those patients could soon be adopted system-wide.
More:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/experiments-aim-to-cut-health-care-costs/2012/01/25/gIQAtQQtRQ_story.html?wprss=rss_national
Mojorabbit
(16,020 posts)Some health-care experts question how many of these experiments will result in significant savings.
They point to a study released by the Congressional Budget Office last week that found that savings were produced in only one of 10 major Medicare demonstration projects tried by administrations since 1967 all of them similar to initiatives the innovation center has begun.
It would be wrong to assume we shouldnt do these new projects just because the last ones didnt succeed, said Robert Laszewski, a health-care consultant with clients across the industry. If Thomas Edison had stopped the first time he failed, we wouldnt have the light bulb.
Still, he said, it is worth focusing on the key feature of the one experiment that did succeed: It penalized providers that did not produce savings.
I remember when HMO's were popular in the day. Savings were often at patients expense in quality of care.
area51
(11,868 posts)That would be single-payer health care.
http://www.pnhp.org/facts/singlepayer_faq.php