(Originally published in Nasdaq’s MarketInsite, July 18, 2017, and written on behalf of iProtean, now part of Veralon by Karma Bass, Principal, Via Healthcare Consulting) “I don’t care about having a high-performing board.” It’s hard to imagine any CEO or board leader uttering these words in today’s rapidly changing healthcare industry. The stakes are just too […]
Veralon Views Blog
The Veralon Views blog is an extension of our partnership with leaders who are transforming the healthcare industry. Here, we share expert perspectives from our nationally recognized senior consulting team on issues that are key to the success of your organization.
Over the first three years of the Medicare Shared Savings Program (2013-2015), 428 Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) served 9.7 million beneficiaries. Most of these participating ACOs reduced Medicare spending compared to their benchmarks, resulting in a net spending reduction of nearly $1 billion, according to an August report from the Office of the Inspector General […]
Physician employment agreements now commonly include compensation for services beyond basic clinical services; they may also provide compensation for medical directorships, teaching, on-call payments, and so on. We have found that physicians transitioning to hospital employment are generally accepting of clinical compensation models that include a base salary coupled with productivity and quality incentives. However, […]
Clinically Integrated Networks (CINs) need quality data to understand their patient population and manage provider practice patterns. That makes information technology (“IT”) critical at any stage of CIN development. For CINs with a mix of employed and independent physicians, IT is likely to be a tale of two cities – the employed physicians have solid, […]
Note: iProtean, now part of Veralon editorial staff will be on vacation through Labor Day. Look for the next blog/newsletter September 6.) (From a recent interview with Karma Bass, Via Healthcare Consulting) When fellow board members exhibit disruptive or troublesome behavior in the boardroom, they often don’t see it that way; that is, […]
Medicare payments to hospitals under the inpatient prospective payment system (IPPS) will increase by about $2.4 billion in fiscal year (FY) 2018 under final rule CMS issued August 2. The increase is less than the $3.1 billion anticipated under the proposed rule released in April. The rule will take effect October 1. In its […]
Hospitals and health systems have not historically focused on post-acute care. However, several factors are now motivating them to develop or strengthen their ties with post-acute care providers and establish an explicit post-acute care strategy. Acute care providers need to develop strong collaborative relationships with post-acute providers to ensure access to the post-acute care capacity […]
Economists estimate that 80 percent of all the cost of health care relate to social determinants of health. These include everything from exercise and healthy diet and healthy weight, to avoiding substance abuse and/or other self-destructive behaviors, to ensuring that people have adequate nutrition and housing. Those are big social issues that hospitals and health […]
Increasingly, hospital administrators are concluding that there is a great deal more to managing their employed physicians than simply signing them up. Hospital and health system leadership use data and analysis to create medical staff plans that determine the physician complement that best meets their various needs. Traditionally, hospitals and health systems have used two […]
(The following includes excerpts from our upcoming course, Strategic Issues for Boards, as well as information that didn’t make the cut.) MACRA creates two different tracks for clinicians to participate in Medicare. One is called the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System, or MIPS. The second is the Advanced Alternative Payment Model (AAPM). Each of these […]