October 28, 2011 - The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has begun publishing data on new measures assessing the quality and safety of hospital care, providing a more complete picture of hospital care. Anne-Marie J. Audet, M.D, and Shreya Patel, say the release of the new measures will lead to a healthy process of public vetting and debate.
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October 25, 2011 - In a new blog post on the Dutch health care system, Jonathan Cohn, senior editor at the New Republic, discusses quality and health outcomes in the Netherlands, as well as recent efforts to encourage insurers to compete on quality as well as costs.
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October 21, 2011 - The highly anticipated final regulations for accountable care organizations (ACOs) were recently released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In this post, the Fund's Mark Zezza and Stuart Guterman outline the key changes to the regulations.
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October 21, 2011 - In a guide released today by the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative, a chapter by Commonwealth Fund staff outlines key strategies to help health systems effectively measure care coordination as a routine part of medical home activities. This post outlines the seven strategies proposed in the chapter.
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October 17, 2011 - The Commonwealth Fund's Caryn Marks and Megan Keenan recount a recent briefing that examined the potential impact of various deficit reduction plans on Medicare. The briefing was the second in a series of Alliance for Health Reform briefings on deficit reduction, jointly sponsored by The Commonwealth Fund, The SCAN Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Kaiser Family Foundation.
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October 14, 2011 - In this two-part blog post, Mark Zezza and Stuart Guterman highlight aspects of the Pioneer Model accountable care organization program. In this post, they look at patient assignment, provider participation, the contract period, the governing board, and multipayer alignment.
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October 12, 2011 - In a two-part blog post, Commonwealth Fund authors Mark Zezza and Stuart Guterman highlight aspects of the Pioneer Model and how it differs from the Shared Savings Program. In this post, they look at shared-savings payments.
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October 06, 2011 - A new international series by Jonathan Cohn, senior editor at the New Republic, launches with this exploration of the Dutch health care system, which includes many features of a high-performance health system.
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October 06, 2011 - Commonwealth Fund staff Caryn Marks, Megan Keenan, and Mary Jane Koren report on the Alliance for Health Reform/Fund briefing onthe opportunities and challenges in the U.S. long-term services and supports system.
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September 30, 2011 - An analysis conducted by Jon Gabel and colleagues attributes only 1.8 percentage points of the recently reported 8 percent to 9 percent rise in premiums to the Affordable Care Act's insurance reforms.
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September 13, 2011 - New U.S. Census data show that the number of people without health insurance climbed to 49.9 million in 2010, but a decrease in the number of uninsured young adults.
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September 13, 2011 - Scotland is the first country in the world to mandate a structured safety improvement program for its whole health care system. The Scottish Patient Safety Program, in which all acute care hospitals take part, aims to reduce mortality by 15 percent and patient harm by 30 percent by the end of 2012.
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August 31, 2011 - In this post, Sara Collins discusses how the new premium tax credits created by the health reform law will improve the affordability and accessibility of insurance.
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August 24, 2011 - In this post, The Commonwealth Fund's Michelle Doty and Sara Collins call for reestablishing COBRA premium subsidies that previously helped millions of people who lost their jobs maintain their health insurance coverage.
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August 15, 2011 - People have too many expectations for the state insurance exchanges, says Rhode Island Health Insurance Commissioner Christopher Koller. In a new post, he calls on the designers of the exchanges to clarify and prioritize these goals.
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