Accountable Care
On the Front Lines to Support New Payment Models
As we continue to debate healthcare reform in the United States, the discussion has broadened to not only solving the problem of millions of Americans without health insurance, but also to consider opportunities for care quality and outcomes improvement, to stabilize rising healthcare costs and to create a smarter and more sustainable healthcare system that effectively address these issues.
- Dramatic variations in spending that appear to have little impact on quality, the frequent occurrence of medical errors despite increased scrutiny and poor compliance with proven therapies and procedures are clear indicators that our current reimbursement system neither rewards nor encourages high quality, effective care.
- It needs to become about the value for money spent. Did you know that we spend three times more per Medicare beneficiary in certain geographic regions than in others, and yet the quality and outcomes of care are no better? Many preventive services are underused and as recently as 2008, 1.5 million measurable medical errors cost the economy $19.5 billion, according to an August 2010 joint study by Milliman, Inc. and the Society of Actuaries.
- All of these gaps in care are reinforced by Medicare's legacy payment systems, which have promoted high-volume and high-intensity care regardless of quality, and do not support innovative approaches to coordinating care or preventing avoidable complications or services.
But transformation is coming. Building on the success of recent Medicare pilot programs, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act establishes Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) as a national Medicare program that provider groups will be able to join in 2012. Within the program, primary care physicians are encouraged to join together with other providers to take responsibility for their patients' full continuum of care. They must commit to reporting comprehensive quality measures and, eventually, outcomes. If they are able to improve quality and reduce costs, they will receive a share of the savings achieved.
At Greenway, we are actively engaging this new payment program to ensure that PrimeSUITE® can support the clinical data collection and reporting requirements for our physician practice-based customers. We know how important this initiative and others of its kind will be in demonstrating that better care quality drives more efficient care delivery. And we know our customers are committed to this principle. Greenway Medical Technologies is a leader in delivering effective solutions to meet the emerging needs of a transforming healthcare system. We work side-by-side with our customers as business partners to support their efforts to provide the best care to their patients and the best working environment for their staffs.
Greenway Medical Technologies leads the industry in these challenging and complex efforts. Partner with Greenway to be on the forefront of accountable care health care reform.