Yesterday, President Obama signed the SGR Fix Bill (MedPage Article) into law. What this bill does, among many other things, is save the EMS industry from a potential 3% loss on reimbursement rates for 2011. It also ensured that doctors would not take a 25% cut in 2011. Through diligence in Washington by many EMS and health care related groups we are all able to weather the budget storm that will continue to ravage the entire health care system due to the implementation of "Obama-care".
This is a band-aid on the wound that is the national health plan. Until the SGR is truly fixed we will continue this cycle every year. I implore every person to reach out to our senators and representatives to help them understand that the system is just that, a system. A shortfall in any one area will have a dramatic effect on the system and will result in failures that we can only estimate.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Running a hospital: Push pins give a safety and quality update
Notice the second picture lower right hand corner. If they have this challenge, why not reach out to the people and groups who are the experts in patient transitions? Part of the patient/bed flow process is getting the patient and information to where it needs to be effectively, safely, appropriately and in a timely manner. EMS is part of the system and can help with the challenges these facilities face, if only one would be willing to listen and be a leader in creating a culture of change....
Running a hospital: Push pins give a safety and quality update: "#IHI It is not a scientific survey, but these push pins give a sense of what's working and what's not in process improvements in the health ..."
Running a hospital: Push pins give a safety and quality update: "#IHI It is not a scientific survey, but these push pins give a sense of what's working and what's not in process improvements in the health ..."
Thursday, December 2, 2010
ACOs? Who are they keeping Accountable?
Accountable Care Organizations, or ACOs, are a new trend that has been emerging in the healthcare industry. The idea is simple enough; build a complete healthcare system that will make the patients' flow through the maze of cross continuum of care simplified. Hospital systems will include not just hospitals any more but also LTAC's, SNF's, Hospice, VNA and a large and varied range of services for the rehabilitation and post acute care settings.
The article written by Kip Sullivan (The History and Definition of Accountable Care Organizations) gives the best definition and explanation of the ACO idea.
My concerns are these; what patient services are the ACOs not going to directly provide and what sort of “Accountability” will they require from the vendors that they contract with? Will there be a control in place for patient care? Will there be standardize reporting systems so all parts of the ACO, internal or external, are rating the patient satisfaction, outcome and care on a 1 for 1 basis? Will CMS actually set up standardize information on what establishes the cost of any given service that it pays for, so a true price can be placed on the service for equitable reimbursement, regardless of the vendor or facility? Will CMS force the ACOs to have multiple vendors for similar services or will the ACO be a “one-stop-shop”, disregarding the growing and popular trend of an educated patient choice?
The fact that the evolution of health care in the United States is so rapid leads me to believe that these standards are only in their infancy of development. ACOs can be successful, if these, plus many other concerns are appropriately discussed, prior to the implementation of ACOs in the healthcare marketplace.
The article written by Kip Sullivan (The History and Definition of Accountable Care Organizations) gives the best definition and explanation of the ACO idea.
My concerns are these; what patient services are the ACOs not going to directly provide and what sort of “Accountability” will they require from the vendors that they contract with? Will there be a control in place for patient care? Will there be standardize reporting systems so all parts of the ACO, internal or external, are rating the patient satisfaction, outcome and care on a 1 for 1 basis? Will CMS actually set up standardize information on what establishes the cost of any given service that it pays for, so a true price can be placed on the service for equitable reimbursement, regardless of the vendor or facility? Will CMS force the ACOs to have multiple vendors for similar services or will the ACO be a “one-stop-shop”, disregarding the growing and popular trend of an educated patient choice?
The fact that the evolution of health care in the United States is so rapid leads me to believe that these standards are only in their infancy of development. ACOs can be successful, if these, plus many other concerns are appropriately discussed, prior to the implementation of ACOs in the healthcare marketplace.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
EMS in Healthcare
Plain and simple. EMS is Health care. Despite the fact that many of the services are included with the municipal services, they are still a integral part of the total health care system. We face many of the same challenges that hospitals feel with pressures on quality, choice, payor reform and performance measures. We also deal with heavy government regulations (granted I feel many of these are necessary to guarantee public safety), tax concerns and severe public scrutiny.
In effort to give full disclosure I am a current employee of a private ambulance company that does both emergent and non-emergent ambulance work in the greater Boston, MA area. The start of this Blog is to open a forum for discussion in the EMS field on health care reform, EMS regulations and the need for a national standard as well as any other topic of interest that relates to our field and the interaction we have with other areas of Health care.
In effort to give full disclosure I am a current employee of a private ambulance company that does both emergent and non-emergent ambulance work in the greater Boston, MA area. The start of this Blog is to open a forum for discussion in the EMS field on health care reform, EMS regulations and the need for a national standard as well as any other topic of interest that relates to our field and the interaction we have with other areas of Health care.
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