Blogs

MACRA’s full implementation is almost here. There are anticipation, anxiety, and confusion about this complex law. CMS released the 962 pages proposed role in 2015 and most of the people gave negative reviews on it, predominantly because of the complex of it. Besides this, the proposed rule was considered by many as not for small practices and 9 out of 10 solo practices would have received negative adjustments. CMS spent countless hours and carefully analyzed suggestions to come up with a 2400 pages Final rule with comment period! The modifications have made MACRA hugely flexible and have a lot of spectrum to make the transition to value-based care happen.

Almost a decade ago, healthcare experts noticed a huge in evidence-based care and the quality of care that was being actually delivered. The number of cases of medical errors was rising with the cost. At one point in time US had most preventable deaths among other developed countries. Owing to this clinical data reporting was necessary more than ever to improve the health of the population and create impact at scale.

A new complex rule is about to change the entire US healthcare industry. It will replace the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) and streamline the three programs. The NPRM for MACRA was passed in 2015 and after the comments and feedbacks from numerous healthcare experts, the final rule with comment period has been released by CMS.

Since 1966, Americans have received more Nobel Prizes in Medicine than rest of the world combined with astonishing advancement in medical treatments, but how much of it reflected on ground level is still a troublesome figure. The soaring costs of healthcare; the amount spent on health care is approximately 20% of the country’s GDP and the amount spent on one person per year is going to be roughly $10,000 in 2017; much higher than any other country. Despite ACA, more than 30 million people in the U.S. are still uninsured. With so many concerns, the healthcare industry needs innovation to change this bleak picture.

Leaders from more than 550 ACOs gathered in Washington, D.C. for NAACOS fall conference. These were esteemed healthcare professionals like ACO leaders, clinical leaders, administrators, executives, payers exhibitors, and CMS officials who shared invaluable insights on current healthcare standards and the scopes of improvement in them. We had the chance to interact with these renowned healthcare personalities and understand various matters of paramount importance. Speakers shared their opinions and ideas that would make healthcare equitable and affordable, here are our key takeaways from this NAACOS conference.

The process of measuring the performance against a set standard is benchmarking, a simple concept that plays a major role in improving the quality. Today, the need of benchmarking in healthcare is more than ever. Currently, the numbers related to US healthcare create a sense of urgency and demand a future-proof strategy to overcome the mounting challenges. Despite being one of the most developed countries, US is way behind other developed countries.