Nathan Moore, M.D., medical director of the BJC Medical Group ACO in St. Louis, sees annual wellness visits (AWVs) as a scaffolding for all of the ACO’s improvement efforts. “We’re using this as our point of entry for advanced care planning and for functional status evaluations,” he said. Moore was speaking during an April 28…
This week, a group of senior officials from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), some from the Center for Medicare, some from the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI, also called The Innovation Center) authored an op-ed in the Perspectives section of The New England Journal of Medicine online, in which they outline their…
Nathan Moore, M.D., medical director of the BJC Medical Group ACO in St. Louis, sees annual wellness visits (AWVs) as a scaffolding for all of the ACO’s improvement efforts. “We’re using this as our point of entry for advanced care planning and for functional status evaluations,” he said. Moore was speaking during an April 28…
Two years into the global COVID-19 phenomenon, it’s become very clear that patient care organizations in the United States have taken a big financial hit from the pandemic. Not only has caring for COVID-19 patients turned out to be extremely expensive, the pandemic has also scrambled hospital operations in particular, as numerous nurses, physicians, and…
You’ll recall that we ran a long piece (pt 1, pt 2) about Medicare Advantage from former Kaiser Permanente CEO George Halvorson earlier this year. Here’s a somewhat related piece from the current head of The Permanente Medical Group about what actually happened there and elsewhere during the pandemic–Matthew Holt The COVID-19 pandemic has provided…
After nearly a year of health equity work, Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra said the department will continue to make justice in the medical space a top priority. “Dr. King famously called injustice in health the most inhumane and shocking form of inequality,” Becerra began in a keynote address during…
Remote patient monitoring (RPM) though by no means a new care modality is evolving rapidly, spurred by the constraints of the COVID-19 pandemic and the corresponding regulatory push to expand access to care. In its simplest form, RPM involves the use of connected electronic tools to record personal health and medical data in one location…
There are few silver linings related to the COVID-19 pandemic, but one that stands out is the growing recognition that health equity must be an essential guiding principle for health care organizations going forward. The broader health care system suffered greatly due to the coronavirus outbreak that has infected tens of millions and killed hundreds…
Today’s environment is one of two narratives: On one hand, there’s optimism as more Americans receive vaccines and resume in-person interactions. On the other hand, people are frustrated as the pandemic drags on with new variants and mixed guidance, and the return to normal is stymied by price inflation and supply chain disruptions. For health…
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought social and racial inequity to the forefront of public health. In the United States, the pandemic has affected many communities, including racial and ethnic minorities as well as low-income populations, more severely than other groups. Negative health outcomes are more common among individuals within these groups, and social determinants of…