March 2014

Catalyst for Payment and Reform examines how different payment models can help change the way we pay for and measure quality of maternity care, and thus improve health outcomes for babies and mothers.

The concept of clinical nuance-among others-is highlighted at the University of Michigan Center for Value-Based Insurance Design's annual Summit.

After the disastrous rollout of the healthcare exchanges last October, Kathleen Sebelius has hit the road to pump up enrollment-and it just might be working.

Merck and the Heritage Provider Network forge a new kind of relationship, with the goals of spawning innovation in healthcare delivery and of providing an outline for future collaborations between ACOs and other healthcare stakeholders.

Bundled payments are a step in the right direction when it comes to moving away from a fee-for-service payment structure. They have been proved to cut costs, and providers are responding by producing significantly better outcomes. naviHealth, a postacute care benefit manager, will test one bundled payment model using 11 hospitals in 5 states.

Sustaining and enhancing patient experience in this era of reform will require a combined macro policy-level and micro practice-level approach.

The ambiguous results of the Pioneer ACO evaluation could undermine the case for experimentation, and deter policy makers from moving forward as urgently as they must in order to improve on the ACO model. But it shouldn't.

The authors discuss 4 tech-dependent innovations that will be major keys to the sustained success of ACOs.

Medicaid is a deeply flawed program in need of reform, but the hope that Arkansas will establish a pathway for such reform may be met with disappointment.