Onkar Harry is a seasoned healthcare professional and consultant with operations and information systems experience within Health care organizations, including providers, payors, TPAs, vendors and other health care related organizations. Here you can find links to selected topics of interest within the healthcare and IT industry.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Accountable Care Organizations: Draft rules and guidance released by CMS, IRS, OIG, FTC
When it rains it pours. CMS today released several hotly anticipated goodies related to Accountable Care Organizations. First and foremost, the agency published a 429-page draft that details how CMS would implement section 3022 of the Affordable Care Act, which contains provisions relating to Medicare payments to providers who participate in ACOs.
The agency also published jointly with HHS Office of Inspector General its proposals for waivers of certain Federal laws, including the physician self-referral law, the anti-kickback statute and specific provisions of the civil monetary penalty law.
In addition, the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice jointly issued Antitrust Policy Statement, and the Internal Revenue Service published its take on guidance needed for tax-exempt organizations that participate in ACOs.
For more information:
- read this National Journal report
Related Articles:
Accountable care will require fierce communication strategies
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Top 100 hospitals identified for 2011
Russell Medical Center, in Alexander City, Ala.; Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Ill.; Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston were among the 100 Top Hospitals identified this week by Thomson Reuters.
The annual ranking "uses objective research and independent public data to recognize the best U.S. hospitals. Hospitals do not apply and winners do not pay to market this honor," Thomson Reuters reports.
Other top performers include NorthShore University HealthSystem in Evanston, Ill., Caritas St. Elizabeth's Medical Center in Boston and American Fork (Utah) Hospital. List
"Counties ranked online on overall health factors
Healthcare providers interested in finding out where their counties measure up in terms of how healthy their residents are and what factors--ranging from access to healthcare, tobacco use, obesity, employment, safety and air quality--are impacting that health, can examine new online health rankings released today.
'These rankings tell us that where we live matters to our health,' said Patrick Remington, MD, MPH, associate dean for public health at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, at a March 30 telebriefing. This second annual release of county health rankings was compiled by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.'The rankings are the only annual checkup for the over 3,000 counties in the nation,' Remington said. The rankings can be used by individuals to compare the overall health of their counties against other counties in their state, and also with top-performing counties nationwide on specific health factors.
Like last year's rankings, researchers used specific measures to assess health outcomes by county: the rate of people dying before age 75; the percentage of people who reported being in fair or poor health; the number of days in poor mental health; and the rate of low-birthweight infants.Information also was collected on about 25 other factors that affect the health of communities--'information about the quality of healthcare, lifestyles, social and economic factors, and also measures of the environment,' Remington said.
Among the general findings of the study: counties with urban communities are the least healthy in their state; counties with suburbs adjacent to these urban areas are healthier but often have very polluted air and poor environmental conditions; and rural counties often tended to have the overall poorer health factors. 'But it's really important to understand that each county is different,' Remington noted.For more details:
- see the online health rankings website
- view the County Health Rankings release
Urban, suburban areas rank highest in county-specific health outcomes
Reach for the Top Community Health Initiative to Spark Improvements in Health, Care Delivery and Cost