Major Changes to Medicare Coming

[policy doctor]

Hm....just picked up this article from Yahoo. I think we've heard all this before from some mapd carriers like Cigna/HS...who uses a bonus system to reward drs on performance. Also heard that's why UHC dropped so many physicians in network....they were over-utilizing services.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/major-changes-medicare-coming-senior-015900401.html

 

[thomasm]

Maybe I'm naive, but it doesn't seem like a bad thing. Pay for performance creates efficiencies and increases productivity in the private employment market. I would probably implement something like this if I ever hire an employee.

The uncertain future of Medigap in the news is probably a bigger concern for us.

 

[cadylou]

Maybe I'm naive, but it doesn't seem like a bad thing. Pay for performance creates efficiencies and increases productivity in the private employment market. I would probably implement something like this if I ever hire an employee.

The uncertain future of Medigap in the news is probably a bigger concern for us.

Pay for performance is fine if you have an equitable way to measure performance. What is a positive outcome for a pediatrician's patient vs. an endocronologist's diabetic patient? The measures could be very different for one vs. another. They've already showed that some of the fines to hospitals for measures like, the number of readmissions to the hospital and more frequent admissions, disadvantage hospitals serving lower economic communities, mainly because their patient base doesn't seek out preventive care either due to cost or limited access.

This article on the same subject came out this morning, and looks at the issue a little less favorably than the first article posted.

HHS Pledges To Quicken Pace Toward Quality-Based Medicare Payments | Kaiser Health News

The Government is moving full speed ahead with all of these initiatives. I’m sure the one above will somehow need to be “paid for” by restricting medicare recipients choices in the Med Supp market too – this kind of activity will push things more toward the medicare advantage side, or worse yet the abolishment of supplements and the idea that costs will be managed through “effectiveness” and quality measures that are unproven in bringing down the cost of care sufficiently.

Seems to me they are suddenly in a big hurry to establish all kinds of unproven & unsubstantiated "new" initiatives on all fronts, and this could end up being very bad for us. . . .