The patient-centered medical home (PCMH) model challenges primary care providers to raise the bar on care coordination, population health management, clinical analytics, and access to care, but healthcare organizations that undertake these important quality transformations are usually left to foot the bill themselves. In a reimbursement landscape that remains, for the most part, rooted in fee-for-service payment, the incentive to pay out of pocket for these massive and costly changes can be hard to find.
The Republicans' congressional victories this week position them to take aim at significant provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that could endanger its long-term viability. But only if they can agree on a plan of attack and stick with it.
Targets are expected to include controversial provisions of the law such as the employer and individual insurance mandates and excise taxes on medical devices and health plans. Another likely target is the 30-hour-per-week definition of full-time work.
The primary objective of our health care system is to ensure that quality health care is readily accessible for patients. However, as health care becomes increasingly entangled in a web of networks, insurers, and providers, the patient’s best interest can get lost.
The National Health Service Corps has been a key program in offering access to primary care in rural and underserved areas since its establishment in 1972.
President Barack Obama's 2009 stimulus package and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act increased funding for the program, which repays medical education loans for providers working in underserved areas, most at federally qualified community health centers.
As we approach the one-year anniversary of Obamacare’s launch, the pundits continue to argue over whether or not it’s working. Meanwhile, something much bigger is happening. Whatever you think of its merits, the Affordable Care Act is re-shaping American healthcare, radically altering business models that hadn’t changed in decades.
As a practicing ear, nose and throat specialist in Ahoskie, N.C., Dr. Raghuvir B. Gelot says that little has frustrated him more than the digital record system he installed a few years ago.
The problem: His system, made by one company, cannot share patient records with the local medical center, which uses a program made by another company.
The two companies are quick to deny responsibility, each blaming the other.
