Much has been written and said about the effect of the election on the implementation of federal health reform initiatives. The commentariat, including the blogerati and twitterati wings, have focused on the budget battles of the future to come from Capitol Hill, the flurry of regulations to come from HHS, and the last stand of the boys in red in certain state capitals around the country against implementation of health insurance exchanges and Medicaid expansion under the ACA.
I spoke recently about the importance of the Accountable Care Organization law and regulations, and related initiatives being undertaken by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) at CMS, and the ways in which these initiatives are likely to affect the next phase in the development of the health care system in this country. I thought I'd share a few of the highlights here.
We have built a system of sick care in the USA, not health care, and the disruptive forces contained in the Affordable Care Act, including the ACO provisions, have the potential power to change our system to a system of health care – by changing the focus, by changing the incentives, by changing the behaviors of both patients and providers.
Continue reading at HealthBlawg:
Health Reform After the Election: Accountable Care Organizations and Population Health