Tag Archives: provider reimbursement

September 26, 2016

Two faulty beliefs about IMEs & impartial physicians

Patients and their advocates tend to be skeptical about independent medical opinions.   There are legitimate reasons to be concerned.  However, I want to point out two common but faulty beliefs that create UNNECESSARY distrust in this aspect of disability benefits and workers’ compensation claim management systems.  First, despite patients’ faith in their own doctors, treating physicians as a group are NOT a reliable source of accurate and unbiased information.  Second, although justice IS even-handed, impartial physicians should not find for both sides equally.

Based on my experience leading teams on three consulting projects that audited the quality of more than 1400 reports of independent medical evaluations and file reviews I definitely share MANY other concerns about the quality of the reports, the process by which they are procured, and the physicians and other healthcare professionals who provide them.  But these two particular issues are not among them. Read on to find out why.

FACT:  As a group, treating physicians are NOT a reliable source of accurate and unbiased information

First is the incorrect belief that the treating physician is the BEST place to turn for an “independent” opinion because they are highly trained professionals who are familiar with the patient’s case.   There are two main reasons why this is incorrect:

(a) There is considerable variability in the appropriateness and effectiveness of the care delivered by practicing physicians, and patients are not in a good position to assess it.  Evaluating appropriateness and effectiveness is admittedly a difficult and imperfect process, but the best way we know to do it is through the eyes of another physician who is equally or more expert in the matter at hand — and has no axe to grind and no financial stake in the outcome:  neither a friendly colleague nor a competitor.

(b) In medical school and residency, physicians are often told they should be “patient advocates” — but that instruction may not include a definition of advocating. (True for me and many others in physician audiences when I have asked about it.)  Patient advocacy sometimes turns into doing or saying exactly what the patient wants, not what is actually in the best interest of the patients’ long term health and well-being.  (I call this being a McDoctor.)  Particularly in today’s world with fierce competition between medical groups for patients and the use of “patient satisfaction scores” in calculating physician bonuses, that is true.  The data is clear:  treating physicians provide unnecessary antibiotics, pain medications, inappropriate treatments and are even willing to even shade the truth on reports in order to keep their patients happy.

The reason why arms-length or “third party” physicians are preferred as the source of opinions is to protect patients from harm from EITHER the “first party” (treating physician) OR the “second party” (the payer — which has an OBVIOUS business interest in controlling cost).  Judges, public policy people, and I get uncomfortable when the WAY the arms length physician is SELECTED is distorted by the interests of either the first party or second party.

FACT:   Impartial physicians’ opinions should not find for both sides equally

Second is the belief that “truly” impartial physicians should come down on the side of the patient vs. insurer half the time.  Or call it 50:50 for plaintiff vs. defense.  This belief is WRONG because cases selected for review or IME have been pre-selected by claims managers and case managers.   These professionals may not be healthcare professionals but because they see thousands of cases and become very familiar with the medical landscape, they ARE often more experienced OBSERVERS of the process of care than many physicians. They learn to recognize patterns of care that fit normal patterns, and care that is unusual.  These days, they are often expected to use evidence-based guidelines to identify outlier cases.  Those who focus on specific geographical areas come to see which doctors get patients better and which ones don’t.

The VAST MAJORITY of the time, there is no need / no reason to refer a case for independent review.  The treating physician IS doing the right thing;  the diagnoses, prescribed treatment, and causation determination (if work-related) DO appear reasonable and appropriate.   If the claims managers/ case managers see no problems or have no questions, they don’t refer the case for outside review.  If it aint busted, why fix it?

So as a rule of thumb, you can assume that some feature or another in ALMOST EVERY case being sent to review has RAISED QUESTIONS in the mind of an experienced observer of the care process.  The reason WHY the case is REFERRED is because that observer has only a very superficial knowledge of medicine.  They need an adviser — an impartial and expert physician who can evaluate the clinical facts and context and then either CONFIRM that the treating physician is doing the right thing or VALIDATE the claims/case manager’s concerns.

When claims/case managers are doing a good job selecting cases for referral, we SHOULD expect that MOST of the decisions will favor the insurer / defense. The more expert the claim/case managers are, the MORE LIKELY the independent physicians will agree — because the claims/case managers are accurately detecting real problems and concerns.

(By the way, a similar ratio seems to apply in the court system.   A judge once told me that MOST defendants ARE guilty – because the prosecutors don’t want to waste their time and public funds bringing cases to trial if they think the defendant is innocent – or if they simply think they will lose.    A perfect example  of this pragmatism is the FBI’s recent decision not to prosecute Hillary Clinton.  The Director made it clear that they didn’t want to waste the taxpayers’ money on a case in which they wouldn’t be able to convince a jury “beyond a reasonable doubt.”)

Consider this:  If you are a treating physician who FREQUENTLY ends up with your care plans rejected by claims managers and utilization review, consider the possibility that YOU stick out.  Your care patterns may be more unusual than you realize.  Your outcomes may be worse than your colleagues’.

Sadly, some physicians discredit input from independent experts in front of patients.  They THINK they are advocating for their patient — on a social justice crusade, but end up harming their patient instead — by teaching them they have been wronged, are a victim of “the system,” and a helpless pawn.  This message:

  • increases distrust, resentment and anger (which in turn worsens symptoms);
  • encourages passivity rather than problem-solving (which in turn increases the likelihood of job loss, permanent withdrawal from the workforce, and a future of poverty on disability benefits).

A former president of the Oregon Medical Association said he counsels patients this way:  “Your two most important treasures are your health and your job. And  I am here to help you protect both of them.”  Healthcare practitioners really ought to do everything they can help their patients find a successful way out of these predicaments, instead of allowing them to believe they are trapped.  The “system” is not designed to solve their life predicament for them — they may have to do it themselves.  The physicians’ care plans should consist of those treatments known to restore function and work ability most rapidly.  Physicians should encourage their patients to tell their employer they want find a way to stay productive and keep their jobs.  And if the employer won’t support them, physicians should counsel their patients to try to find a new job quickly — even if it’s temporary or they have to make a change to the kind of work they do.

Adapting to loss is a key part of recovery.   When I was treating patients, I could tell they were going to be OK when they said with pride “I’ve figured out how to work around it, and life is getting back on track.”

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August 5, 2016

CMS announces where they will start transforming physician payment plans

If like me you’ve been kinda following Federal physician payment reform (and hoping that what is learned there there will lead to payment reform in the private sector or maybe even workers’ compensation), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) made a big announcement this week.

Starting 4 months from now, (January 2017) they will be rolling out / testing a really quite revolutionary change in payments to PRIMARY physicians in 14 regions that include 11 whole states:  Arkansas, Colorado, Hawaii, Michigan, Montana, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island and Tennessee.    Other areas are the Greater Kansas City, MO area; the North Hudson Valley in New York state, the Greater Philadelphia area, and a region that includes all of Ohio plus northern Kentucky.

If you’re in any of those areas, it would behoove you to learn more about this –- and follow it as it unfolds.    CMS is estimating that 5,000 primary care practices serving an estimated 3.5 million beneficiaries could be touched by this model.   They are currently taking applications for providers in eligible practices in these areas, and don’t expect much trouble recruiting because the care-management fees can be a boon for practices.  Providers may be able to earn an additional $100,000 to $250,000 per year under the model, depending on the number of patients who participate.

The new model CPC+ (Comprehensive Primary Care Plus) has two tracks. Under track one, providers get a monthly fee for specific services in addition to the usual fee-for-service Medicare payments. But in track two, practices get an upfront monthly care-management fee coupled with reduced fee-for-service payments. The purpose of this hybrid model is to let practices provide care outside of the traditional face-to-face encounter.

Learn more here:  http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20160801/NEWS/160809989?utm_source=modernhealthcare&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20160801-NEWS-160809989&utm_campaign=financedaily

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July 28, 2016

Video on tools & techniques to aid recovery & RTW

You may like watching the video of a group discussion on Tools to Aid Recovery and Return to Work that was presented (and recorded) via Blab yesterday.  It was a stimulating exchange of ideas about both tools AND techniques with my colleagues Les Kertay, PhD and Chris Brigham, MD — as we each sat in our own offices.  Each of us were visible in our own little boxes on the screen.

The session was aimed at professionals in any discipline who want to hone their skills at working with individuals who are having trouble getting back on their feet.  It was sponsored by R3 Continuum and hosted by John Cloonan, their Marketing Director.

The video is now available on You Tube.  There are a few static-y and jumpy spots in the video, but I believe you will find the 60 minute conversation is worth your time.
Here’s the link to the YouTube version:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAwJFMD0hBo

Afterwards I talked to John Cloonan about Blab.  Apparently it has a built-in link to Twitter, so Twitter users can watch the live Blab video using Twitter’s Periscope capabilities.  Comments from Twitter users are fed to the Blab screen and are visible to presenters, which enables audience participation.  In addition, John was able to simultaneously link the live video to Facebook.   So while we were talking among ourselves, an unknown number of people were watching our discussion via R3 Continuum’s website, Facebook AND Twitter.   If you go any of those places, you can still find it.

Wow, talk about the ability to extend one’s reach and connect with many audiences!   Looks like John Cloonan (as a marketing guy who wants to disseminate messages far and wide) is drawn to Blab because it is possible to attach such a big social media megaphone to it!

As is typical with new technology, there are more challenges than are obvious at first glance.  For example, Blab works much better with a high-speed wired connection.  Some users may find their firewall is blocking it and have to figure out how to unblock it, etc. etc.  I had to restart my silly computer to get the microphone to work.  So having a “tech rehearsal” ahead of time was absolutely essential.

Les, Chris and I are all members of the Praxis Partners Consortium, by the way.

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June 28, 2016

Reduce ill-considered surgeries by using shared medical-decision making

Something called “shared medical decision-making” increases patient satisfaction while reducing utilization of elective procedures that are invasive, risky, of questionable value — and often high cost.   But it is rarely used today outside large health plans.

Do you know how shared medical decision-making (SMDM) differs from “informed consent”?  I didn’t until I attended a presentation by Ben Moulton from the Informed Medical Decisions Foundation. In brief, informed consent is a legal process that is supposed to protect patients and promote patient autonomy.  You’re probably familiar with it.  You get a form to read a minute before the doctor walks in to talk at you for a few minutes about risks and benefits of your up-coming test, procedure or surgery.  Then you sign the form after barely glancing at all the legalese.  In contrast, SMDM is a structured process by which a patient and a clinician share information with each other in a two-way exploratory conversation that prepares the patient to make a truly informed decision.  The INSTANT I learned about SMDM, I became an ardent fan.

(Please forgive the acronyms.  We have been doing a project with the military.  They constantly use acronyms in the interest of brevity.  I now find myself making an acronym out of EVERY multi-syllabic or multi-word term.  Here’s the latest one I learned:  BLUF which means “bottom line up front”.  In other words, instead of beating around the bush, the point of the memo or report is right here at the start!)

So here’s the BLUF:  Since the superiority of SMDM is now well-established among healthcare researchers and legal scholars, and many articles have documented its benefits to patients, to healthcare professionals, and in some cases to health payers, why isn’t it in widespread use every day and everywhere?   As soon as I heard SMDM existed, I began to wonder about what’s getting in the way of constant use?   I bet a combination of conflict of interest and pesky not-so-little logistical details like the lack of vendors, undeveloped operational mechanisms, and lack of fair payment for effort are the main reasons why.  And of course, a preference for costs later rather than costs today.  We gotta find a way around those obstacles!

BACKGROUND:

Ten years ago, a landmark article appeared that distinguished between informed consent and SMDM — then made a persuasive case for the latter.  Here’s the full citation:  King, Jaime S. and Moulton, Benjamin, Rethinking Informed Consent: The Case for Shared Medical Decision-Making. American Journal of Law and Medicine, Vol. 32, pp. 429-501, 2006.

First the authors described the two prevailing types of legal definitions for informed consent.   They wrote: “Currently, the states are almost evenly split between two types of standards for informed consent – the physician-based standard, effective in 25 states, and the patient-based standard, effective in 23 states and the District of Columbia.  Physician-based standards generally require physicians to inform a patient of the risks, benefits and alternatives to a treatment in the same manner that a ‘reasonably prudent practitioner’ in the field would.  On the other hand, patient-based standards hold physicians responsible for providing patients with all information on the risks, benefits and alternatives to a treatment that a ‘reasonable patient’ would attach significance to in making a treatment decision.”

The crux of the problem:   About one third of the time, the prevailing standard of care does not require the physician to do the treatment  (for example, the surgery is not the only treatment available, or is not required to save the patient’s life).  In that third of cases, in which the treatment or procedure is referred to as “elective”,  the intended outcome of the surgery is basically improved quality of life.  Thus, the decision whether to go ahead with the treatment really should depend largely on the values and preferences of the patient.  However, patients vary widely in how much information they want, their appetite for risk, their tolerance for various side effects and possible poor outcomes, and their confidence in their own decision-making ability.   Many of them will not feel prepared to make a good decision no matter how much information they get;  they want guidance or an out and out recommendation from their doctor.  Without knowing the patient’s  preferences and values, physicians are not able to give advice about treatment decisions tailored to the patient’s personal situation — and may inappropriately bias the discussion of alternative plans.

Then the authors defined SMDM:   “a process in which the physician shares with the patient all relevant risk and benefit information on all treatment alternatives and the patient shares with the physician all relevant personal information that might make one treatment or side effect more or less tolerable than others. Then, both parties use this information to come to a mutual medical decision.”  They also said SMDM must occur BEFORE the patient can give truly informed consent.

Here’s another problem:  Many physicians have trouble talking in lay language;  they tend to use big words and medical jargon.  And because medical visits are stressful, patients have trouble remembering the things the doctor tells them.   Moreover, most physicians do not have comparative factual data at hand about likelihood of success and specific side effects for the various treatment alternatives.  This has led to the development of decision aids – pamphlets, booklets and videos for patients that summarize information about procedures and treatments, their likelihood of success, what it is like to live with potential side effects and poor outcomes, and so on, all written in simple everyday language. Both the Foundation and its partner Healthwise have produced many of them.

Finally, the authors asserted that despite the “bureaucratic headaches, the enormous expenditure of financial and human resources, and the need for state by state adoption of new informed consent laws, the long-term benefits of shared decision-making and the use of evidence based decision aids to promote patient understanding of medical information to arrive at informed medical decision making far outweigh the costs for both patients and physicians.”

MY SIMPLISTIC ANALYSIS OF THE REASONS FOR LOW USE

Conflict of interest:
Some (or many) surgeons and interventionists of various kinds earn their living by delivering expensive services – and usually have convinced themselves believe those services are the best thing for the patient.   They often work for healthcare delivery organizations that want to drive revenue up – not down.   The whole team has a vested interest in making sure the patient says “yes” and understandably has less commitment to spending valuable time helping patients say “no thank you” to the operation or the treatment.

My question is:  How can we get around this obstacle?   Why can’t managed care companies or health/disability/workers’ comp payers find qualified third party vendors who can engage patients in shared medical decision-making conversations when the treating physician can’t – or doesn’t want to?   The company Health Dialog does that – but last time I talked with them, they are only set up for bulk sales to healthplans.    I haven’t yet run across an organization that will do onesie and twosie shared medical decision conversations on request.   In workers’ compensation and disability benefits programs, that option is the only way this will fly.

Scarcity and cost of materials, logistics, and lack of delivery mechanisms:
1.    Materials to educate and prepare the patient for shared medical decision-making are available only for a limited number of procedures.  It takes time and expertise to prepare them, and since they are based on the latest scientific evidence, they must constantly be updated.  For example, when I looked last, the Foundation had no package for spine fusion surgery, though they did have them for laminectomy and spine MRI.
2.    Medical offices that buy the materials used to educate and prepare the patient for a shared medical decision-making conversation can’t bill for the cost of the materials.  There is no CPT billing code expressly designed for it, and if the provider bills under a similar-appearing code, it often won’t be paid.
3.    Physicians who conduct “real” shared decision-making conversations in their office aren’t paid for the time.  There is no CPT billing code expressly designed for it, and if the provider bills under another code, it often won’t be paid.
4.    Medical delivery organizations that have especially trained staff on hand to conduct these conversations can’t bill for the time they would spend doing it.   Non-physicians can’t bill health payers for the time they spent on these conversations.  There is no billing code expressly designed for this service, and if the provider bills under another CPT code, it usually won’t be paid.

GOTTA FIND A WAY TO MAKE THIS WORK

Many studies have shown increased patient satisfaction when SMDM occurs.  In addition, Group Health of Oregon reduced healthcare costs by 40% by putting SMDM in place throughout their group practice HMO.  (They didn’t have to worry about getting paid for doing it because Group Health is a prepaid health plan that employs its own physicians.  Increasing patient satisfaction strengthens their business, and any dollars they save stay in house)

Those of us who contract with vendors and operate provider payment mechanisms really ought to get ourselves in gear to remove the barriers to widespread adoption of SMDM.   Drs. Ian Hargreaves and Victor Montori from the Mayo Clinic summarized the situation in an article in Health Affairs entitled “Shared Decision Making: The Need For Patient-Clinician Conversation, Not Just Information,” They wrote: “The patient and clinician must jointly create a course of action that is best for the individual patient and his or her family. The larger need in evidence-informed shared decision making is for a patient-clinician interaction that offers conversation, not just information, and care, not just choice.”

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July 20, 2015

My “mini-manifesto” to reduce spine disability

You may be interested in the “mini-manifesto” I delivered this past Saturday 7/18 at the Spine 10×25 Research Summit in Chicago hosted by the North American Spine Foundation.  They have declared a worthy and very ambitious goal:  to reduce spine disability by 10 percent by the year 2025.  Thus the name: Spine 10×25. Pronounce it like you’re buying lumber – “10 by 25”.

(You can see the video and listen to my talk —  or even the ENTIRE 8 hour event because it was live-streamed and recorded.  Click here to do so.  Advance the recording by moving the blue dot along the horizontal line.  My talk starts at 5:31:50 and goes until 5:51:30.)

Do you know of any other medical group that has drawn a bold line in the sand like that?  I don’t.  It had never occurred to me that a professional society would set out to measurably move the needle.  They just don’t take on that type of project.  Most healthcare professional associations content themselves with pontificating:  being experts and telling other people what to do and how to do it.

My own professional society (ACOEM – the American College of Occupational & Environmental Medicine) has made many significant contributions to society.  In particular, our evidence-based treatment guidelines are very well regarded and in use by several states.   ACOEM has produced many other useful publications that have had a positive impact.  In fact, some of them were developed under my leadership.  But, in the end, they all amount to pontification.

In 2006, I told ACOEM I didn’t want one of those documents to just sit on an electronic shelf. We had developed it in order to introduce the work disability prevention paradigm and shift the way all stakeholders think about work disability.  Entitled “Preventing Needless Work Disability By Helping People Stay Employed“, that report needed to go out into the world.  Thus, the 60 Summits Project was born to carry it into the 50 US states and 10 Canadian provinces of North America.  We created groups of volunteer professionals who planned and held 20 multi-stakeholder summit-type conferences in 12 states and 2 provinces.  We invited the attendees to consider ACOEM’s 16 recommendations for improving the stay-at-work and return-to-work process.  We asked them to decide if they liked each recommendation, and if so, to make a plan for how they were going to carry it out in their own business, community, and jurisdiction. (60 Summits eventually ran out of money and was mothballed.)

Then last month, the boldness of the Spine 10x 25 initiative made me realize that even The 60 Summits Project had a pontification angle to it.  Propagating a new way of thinking and discussing a set of recommendations for change is not the same thing as CARRYING them OUT.  I felt compelled to go and check out these NASF people and participate in their Spine 10×25 Research Summit.

My assigned topic was “Precedents and Prospects for Success” in a 15 minute time slot that got expanded to 20.  It seemed important to speak straight and share my ideas about what needs to be true in order for their goal to be realized.  I offered the audience a (draft) conceptual foundation to use as a context for change, as well a summary-level vision of the way things will look in the future WHEN things have ACTUALLY changed and spine disability is BEING REDUCED by 10%.  View it here. Remember to advance the recording to 5:31:50.

I may expand a bit on some of the main points of that mini-manifesto in later posts.  I developed all of those slides at the conference in order to take into account what the speakers said who had gone before me!  Luckily, I also had some time at lunch.  The tight time limit meant a few big ideas got short shrift.

 

 

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June 5, 2015

A find! Free on-line course for patients with stress, pain & chronic illness

I spent hours yesterday on the web looking for some more self-development resources for our Maze-Masters clients.  By total chance, I fell upon a FREE ON-LINE VERSION of the famed 8 week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Program (MBSR) developed at the University of Massachusetts.  The developer is Dave Potter, a  generous psychotherapist from Idaho who is certified as a MBSR trainer by the UMass Center.     He had to make adaptations in going from a face to face classroom experience to an individual on-line one.   In so doing, he has compiled both the resources used in the course along with others — a rich array of videos and writings from some genuinely world-renowned experts.  They include Jon Kabat-Zinn who created the original UMass program, and many other teachers of mindfulness meditation, body awareness and yoga, and stress management.

As Dave says, MBSR does not “cure” serious medical conditions.  It is an evidence-based intervention.   A doctor can recommend it to a patient and formally “order” it as part of the medical treatment.  But the patient can just go get it themselves, too.   A large and growing body of research indicates the specific techniques taught in the program – when practiced regularly —  can have a significant therapeutic effect for those experiencing stress, anxiety, high blood pressure, depression, chronic pain, migraines, heart conditions, diabetes and other ailments.   Overall, participants say that they feel better:  their symptoms interfere less with their daily lives, and they feel more alive and more “in-tune” with themselves and others.

As the caption to Dave’s smiling photo says, “Even if you don’t intend to take the course, I hope you take advantage of some of the wonderful videos and articles offered freely on the free Palouse Mindfulness MBSR course website site.”

This discovery is GREAT from my point of view  because we have SO MUCH TROUBLE getting payers to shell out for books, videos and other instructional materials for our Maze-Masters clients.  These are out of pocket costs — on top of our time spent finding and getting the materials to the clients and talking with them to make sure they “got it.”   Have you noticed that at conferences, everyone TALKS piously about how important patient education is.  Well, baby, I’m here to tell you the payers AIN’T putting their money where their mouths are — yet!

By the way, in case you’re not aware, there are now established CPT codes that SHOULD allow providers to bill for (a) out of pocket costs paid for educational materials  and (b) delivering structured patient education programs.    In my limited personal experience, these are not yet being use routinely  — neither billed OR paid in the “real world”.  If you HAVE seen them in use, that’s EXCITING NEWS!  Please let me know who, what, where, when, why —  and under what circumstances!

 

 

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May 9, 2015

2 good signs: Momentum building & mechanisms appearing

You’ll be pleased to hear about two developments that are good signs for the transition away from the fee for service payment model in healthcare and towards payment for outcomes.  Buy-in among healthcare CEOs is clearly growing, and Congress just passed MACRA — a new law will increase the mechanisms available to support value-based healthcare reimbursement, particularly for physicians. See below for more details on these two developments.

But first:  If you believe that a FUNDAMENTAL purpose of healthcare services is to enable people to participate as fully as possible in life –which for most working age people includes earning a living — then ability to function & work should be on the list of accountable health outcomes.  Thus, it is CRITICAL to ensure that SOMEONE is sitting at the table advocating for those outcomes — when the nitty-gritty details of the new mechanisms called for in MACRA are worked out!  As you read on, consider what you can do to increase the likelihood that someone IS sitting there.

First, a recent survey of healthcare CEO’s revealed that the VAST majority of them LIKE the idea of value-based payment – even though a substantial fraction of them predict difficulties and revenue reductions as a result.   Almost 8/10 of them said this statement best reflected their attitude:   “Value-based reimbursement models should play the dominant role in healthcare reimbursement with fee-for-service medicine playing a declining and minor role.” The CEO’s also predict that value-based reimbursement will improve quality of care (93% agree).  Overwhelmingly, they think the pace of change is NOT going too fast (91% agree).  NOTE:  Almost all of the CEO’s think we can’t throw away the existing CPT-based payment system entirely – because physicians need an incentive to work hard, and because the metrics that underlie value-based payment don’t work well when there are statistical challenges (unusual  conditions, rare events, low practice volumes, and other reasons for small numbers and high variability).

In another development, while repealing the dreaded Medicare fee cuts called for under the SGR legislation (Sustainable Growth Rate), Congress opened the door to some (potentially) HUGE changes in physician payment.   MACRA – the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 – lays out a general plan for changes in CMS’ physician reimbursement methods.   MACRA replaces the uncertainty about SGR and its draconian 21 percent cut to physician fees this year with tiny but predictable payment increases for the next four-and-a-half years. Then, starting in
2019, MACRA removes some irritating and burdensome penalties and gives physicians two ways to earn performance based incentive payments, either by participating in a new Merit-based Incentive Payment System or an Alternative Payment Model, like a Patient-Centered Medical Home.

Here’s how the White House blog portrayed this legislative achievement.  And here is a brief summary of the key features from the point of view of the American College of Physicians (the ACP) which also provided a more detailed discussion of the law’s provisions concerning physician payment   And here is a one page handout summarizing these provisions of MACRA prepared by ACP for its member physicians.

Lots more to come on this!

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