Managed Care

Strong relationships with physicians, particularly those that are long standing, are likely to increase patients' openness to talk about health care costs when decisions are being made about their treatment options, according to a study from the National Institutes of Health. Rushed visits with insufficient time to talk about important issues can undermine efforts to bring sensitive topics like costs into the doctor-patient relationship and can be counter-productive. The work appears online in the Journal of General Medicine.

The number of patient care organizations across the U.S. in which physician mobility is moving forward is growing daily. Among that throng is the 15-physician Vanguard Medical Group in northeastern New Jersey. In the case of Vanguard, participation in a statewide patient-centered medical home program, and creating its own visiting nurse program, spurred development of a mobile computing strategy.

The three year period in which the Office of the National Coordinator of Health IT (ONC) will fund the Beacon Community Program is coming to an end, and one Beacon is preparing for the “after life.” San Diego Regional Health Information Exchange’s Dan Chavez is looking forward to self-sustainability and an organization of trust.

Five national organizations representing diverse constituencies involved in the nation’s healthcare system joined together in presenting consensus recommendations today for improving health care quality while lowering costs nationwide.

For some medical practices, particularly those in rural areas, the patient-centered medical home (PCMH) is a pipe dream. A progressive concept, PCMHs are designed to bring teams of clinicians together who organize care around patients and track outcomes over time. This model is easier said than done, however, and poses some formidable operational and technical challenges for providers who comfortably operate in the fee-for-service reimbursement environment or are just coming up to speed with electronic health records (EHRs) and other health information technologies (HIT). But for every challenge there is an opportunity, a concept that leaders from Otsego Memorial Hospital (OMH), a fully accredited 46-bed acute care facility and 34-bed long-term care facility in Gaylord, Mich., know all too well.