My physician neighbor works in several urban emergency departments where mental illness and substance abuse cases run rampant. When I ask him about the impact on readmissions, he lights up: […]

I’ve been reading ProvenCare, which describes the Geisinger approach to health care and is filled with mottos such as “achieving extreme patient satisfaction” and “treating patients like family.” One discovery […]

In June the GAO released a report examining the Medicare Hospital Value Based Purchasing (HVBP) payment initiative. This is not their first look at HVBP, with a previous report from […]

Strong predictive models will surface the key person, place, and system factors in play for individuals and for populations. These models incorporate environmental as well as personal health status variables […]

We all know the Trump administration’s commitment to repeal and replace key components of the Affordable Care Act. What we don’t know is what that will look like or how […]

The Missouri Hospital Association’s exploration of the impact of poverty on readmission rates leads them to suggest, “Before Penalizing Hospitals, Account for the Social Determinants of Health.”[1] Here’s an example: […]

As usual I have a song in my head and this month is no different (rock ‘n’ roll tunes are so catchy)!  As we are about to navigate through uncertain […]

In this month’s blog we return to a recurring theme—the issues related to risk adjustment and performance measurement. More specifically, we think it is important to take a closer look […]

“Readmission rates apply to hospitals.  As a primary care physician, I don’t have control over hospitals so why should I be on the hook for this?”  This is a question […]

So, that minor fender bender? When you take your car into the shop, sometimes there is much more damage under the fender than previously thought. Sometimes changes to the official […]

Last month, an article appeared in Modern Healthcare lauding the achievement of New York’s Bellevue Hospital in reducing readmissions to their facility. The article raised a number of issues relating […]

In the past few weeks, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published an article and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (the Academies) released a report […]