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More hospitals penalized in value-based payment program
Here’s a sign that paying more for better care and paying less for inadequate care is taking hold in a significant way. The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) reported this week...
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Updated hospital inspection data includes psychiatric facilities
AHCJ has updated its HospitalInspections.org website and the downloadable version of the data to include reports from most of 2013. The database – obtained from the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid...
View ArticleAs new year begins, consumers lack data to make informed health care decisions
One of the biggest health care news stories of 2013 was the lack of price transparency. But consumers need much more than price information to know how to shop for health care services. They need...
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Covering hospital ratings? Here’s one aspect consumers need you to report...
Photo: Pia ChristensenA Health Journalism 2014 panel about hospital rankings included (left to right) Evan Marks of Healthgrades, Marshall Allen of ProPublica and John Santa, M.D., of Consumer Reports....
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Experts warn against ‘one-size-fits-all’ health care, benefits
Photo by Truthout.org via flickr. So many health care strategies are aimed at controlling costs that we may be missing the point about value. The trouble inherent in focusing on low cost is that it...
View ArticleSearchable hospital data now includes June inspections
AHCJ just added 3,522 detailed records of hospital deficiencies on its HospitalInspections.org website. The latest addition includes inspections into June. The searchable site includes 12,674 different...
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Study: Little evidence that integrating hospital, physician care improves...
Photo: PINKÉ via Flickr When health system executives tout the benefits of acquiring hospitals or physician groups, they often say the combined entity will benefit consumers and insurers by improving...
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Debunking myths designed to hinder price, quality transparency efforts
When writing about transparency in health care prices and quality, journalists should expose the myths that health care providers promote. That’s the advice Francois de Brantes gave during a session on...
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Return to McAllen illustrates changes ACA has brought to health care system
Photo: Peter Dutton via Flickr In June 2009, Atul Gawande wrote an influential New Yorker article, about the community of McAllen, Texas, which has some of the highest per-capita Medicare costs in the...
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Another report casts skeptical eye on patient satisfaction surveys
Photo” PINKÉ via Flickr After we posted in May on issues concerning hospital patient satisfaction surveys, the Hastings Center, a Garrison, N.Y., research institute focusing on bioethics, published its...
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Three CMS proposals would shift basis of payments from volume to value
GraphicStock Announcements from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services last week on rules about bundled payments for hip and knee replacement surgeries, home care, and physician payment...
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Gauging ‘success’ at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation
The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation, created by the Affordable Care Act, is trying new ways of delivering health care and testing new incentives and payment models. Some ideas are likely,...
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Look at how health quality measures have become a jungle
“Pieter Bruegel the Elder – The Tower of Babel (Vienna) – Google Art Project – edited.” Licensed under Public Domain.Some experts view the burgeoning number of quality measures as health care’s Tower...
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IOM spotlights diagnostic errors, continues call to improve patient safety
Photo: Lori Greig via Flickr Efforts to improve health care quality and safety are mostly missing one significant source of concern: diagnostic errors, according to a report Tuesday from the Institute...
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Calif. publishes better insurance price and quality data, but gaps remain
Source: California Healthcare Compare and Consumer ReportsCalifornia Healthcare Compare provides price and quality data for hospitals and physicians in 18 regions of California. California has embraced...
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ProPublica offers rebuttal to Rand critique of Surgeon Scorecard
Not unexpectedly, ProPublica has published a response to the Rand Corporation’s recent 20-page critique of the journalism organization’s Surgeon Scorecard, a searchable database of complication rates...
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Journalists learn about efforts to improve diagnostic process
Photo: Carla K. Johnson(from left) Paul Epner of the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine, Dr. Karen Cosby of Rush University Medical School, and Dr. David Liebovitz of Northwestern Memorial...
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Webcast to explore how consumers, payers and provider groups can evaluate...
François de Brantes Next month, the Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute (HCI3) will publish methodology that will allow consumers, health plans, provider organizations and others to better...
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Patient outcomes are among the most overlooked stories in health care
If you saw our November webcast on how consumers and payers can evaluate physician quality, you know that we began with a quote from Atul Gawande, M.D., about patient outcomes. A professor of health...
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Assessing a journal’s quality can help assess a study’s newsworthiness
Photo: usabiomedlib via Flickr Perhaps you stumble onto an intriguing study that you haven’t seen covered and want to report on it. Or you receive a press release touting provocative findings that...
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