November 29, 2011 - The Commonwealth Fund's Mark Zezza, Melinda Abrams, and Stuart Guterman review the Innovation Center's first year and highlight areas for future development and consideration.
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November 22, 2011 - A recent government report on the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan program found overall enrollment is lower than projected, and that total enrollment in the 24 federally administered programs is much lower than in the 27 programs administered by states. Jean Hall looks at the true drivers of enrollment.
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November 17, 2011 - The list of efforts under way to improve health care delivery way is impressive. The Commonwealth Fund's Anthony Shih says these efforts are synergistic strategies moving us toward a more organized delivery system.
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November 14, 2011 - HHS Sec. Kathleen Sebelius on some of the ways that Americans are benefiting from the Affordable Care Act and how the law is helping to control health care costs.
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November 14, 2011 - In a new post, John Colmers describes the Affordable Care Act implementation work ahead as both daunting and thrilling.
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November 10, 2011 - Sara Collins and colleagues on a new U.S. Census Bureau report that finds that the growing burden of health care costs is impoverishing millions of U.S. families.
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November 09, 2011 - The authors of the 2011 Commonwealth Fund International Survey find that the 11 surveyed nations face similar challenges, such as poorly organized care, and that all of these countries have opportunites to learn from each other.
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November 03, 2011 - Medicare physician fees are scheduled to be reduced by 27.4 percent on January 1, unless Congress acts to override that reduction or eliminate the sustainable growth rate (SGR) mechanism that is used to determine the annual update. In a new post, Stuart Guterman says that Congress repeal and replace the SGR.
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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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