Minnesota

More than six years after the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was first signed into law, President Barack Obama on Monday announced plans to address what many had hoped the act would do all along: move the nation's health-care system away from a traditional fee-for-service model.

Synopsis

Patients with the knowledge, skills, and confidence needed to manage their health conditions are sometimes referred to as “activated.” Health care systems can use patient activation scores to help predict use of costly services, like the emergency department (ED). Knowing who is most at risk for incurring high costs enables systems to tailor their outreach efforts and better manage overall health care costs.

Clinics that take more responsibility for their patients' health and health habits outperformed other primary care clinics in Minnesota and saved government programs more than $1 billion over five years, a University of Minnesota analysis concluded.

The analysis, released Tuesday, validated Minnesota's decision in 2008 to offer additional funding to clinics that become certified "health care homes," meaning they manage patients' overall care and provide counseling and resources to chronically ill patients needing extra help.

At a time when the phrase "reducing health care costs" typically means "slowing the growth of health costs," Hennepin County Medical Center has done something significant: It has actually lowered the cost of caring for its patients.

The heart of the medical center is its ever-expanding downtown Minneapolis headquarters, which currently sprawls over five city blocks. Hundreds of thousands of people get care from HCMC and its network of primary care facilities. Increasingly, what's taking place there has nothing to do with the conventional practice of medicine.

Minnesota employers, health plans and individuals spent $1.9 billion in 2012 for health care that potentially could have been prevented.

So says the state's Department of Health in a first-in-the-nation analysis released today on visits to emergency rooms and hospital admissions and readmissions. Nearly 1.3 million patient visits that year potentially could have prevented, according to the analysis.

Beginning in 2017, the Affordable Care Act gives Minnesota and other states remarkable freedom to dramatically overhaul the law through “innovation waivers” to customize health reform to their citizens’ needs. One of the first questions that Minnesota’s soon-to-be-appointed health task force must grapple with is whether the state pursues further innovation or stays the course with current reforms.

Zumbro Valley Health Center today announced it has earned Health Care Home Certification from the Minnesota Dept. of Health. This certification is the first of its kind for a mental health facility in the state of Minnesota. “We are very excited to receive Health Care Home Certification from the Dept. of Health,” said chief executive officer Dave Cook, LICSW, MSW.