Health Care News
U.S. Health Department Lays Out Its Health Goals For The Next Ten Years
As 2010 gets closer to its end, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has posted its latest strategies for promoting public health in over forty categories by the year 2020. The Healthy People 2020 objectives deal with nearly six hundred aspects of health, from decreasing children’s exposure to allergens, to cutting down the use of suntanning beds which cause cancer, to getting more people insured and food poisoning.
One of the goals laid out in the initiative is to lower the number of deaths from stroke and heart disease by twenty percent, and reduce new cases of diabetes, cancer deaths, and obesity rates by ten percent. Specified objectives to fight obesity feature building more neighborhood sidewalks, pressuring schools to keep their tracks and gyms open for after-hours exercising, and offering healthier meals in day care centers and schools.
The Healthy People goals are to some degree a guide for public health organizations, identifying what problems are improvable and which ones to direct resources toward in the next ten years. Since the Healthy People 2010 goals were set, only 19% of the goals have been met, but progress has been made toward 52% of those goals.
Meeting the goals set forth in Healthy People 2020 will depend less on developing new methods, programs and tools than on our commitment to putting the tools and methods we already have to their best use. For example, the medical establishment is convinced that heart disease could be all but eradicated if we fully applied what we already know about the use of tobacco, and the importance of exercise and proper diet.
CMS to Hold Listening Session on Health Care Delivery System Reform
On Tuesday, December 14, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will host an open door forum for Region 2 to discuss health care delivery system reforms established by the Affordable Care Act of 2010. Dr. Richard Gilfillan, Acting Director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI), and Cheryl Powell, Deputy Director for the Federal Coordinated Health Care Office, will provide a brief overview of the Accountable Care Organization Shared Savings Program, CMMI, and the Federal Coordinated Health Care Office, before opening the discussion for public comment.
Doctors fear health reform
SHREWSBURY — Massachusetts should tread slowly and carefully as it adopts new ways to pay for health care, representatives from medical groups told the state’s top health official yesterday.
Reforms aimed at bringing down costs could unintentionally block patients from their doctors or the care they need, according to some medical professionals and organizations.
“First of all, we need to protect our patients,” said Dr. Barbara Rockett, a general surgeon who practices at Newton-Wellesley Hospital in Newton. “This process should be a very slow process.”
The comments came during a public forum before a committee of the Massachusetts Health Care Quality and Cost Council, a group created as part of the state’s 2006 health care reform law.
About 100 people representing family physicians, registered nurses, anesthesiologists, physical therapists, home health workers and others crowded into a conference room at the University of Massachusetts Medical School’s center at 222 Maple Ave., Shrewsbury, to testify. The committee is preparing recommendations on legislation aimed at reforming health care payments.
Many of the speakers focused on a proposed method of paying for medical care called “global payments.” Insurers generally pay set fees to health professionals for specific procedures. Under global payments, insurers would give set amounts of money to groups of health professionals to manage all the care that patients need. Doctors, nurses, hospitals and others would form groups called “accountable care organizations” or “integrated provider organizations.”
There is no proof that approach will lower costs, said Dr. Bruce S. Auerbach, vice president of Sturdy Memorial Hospital in Attleboro.
“Too much consolidation can result in entities having so much market clout that prices are driven up,” Dr. Auerbach said.
Some patients seeking emergency care ran into barriers under a similar payment method, called capitation, used in the past, according to Dr. Joseph Bergen, past president of the Massachusetts College of Emergency Physicians. “Our fundamental principle is that patients must be protected by some consideration for emergency care,” Dr. Bergen said.
A payment reform commission established by the state has already recommended that any move to global payments take place over at least five years, said Dr. JudyAnn Bigby, state secretary of health and human services, who attended part of the forum. Although a number of speakers urged slow steps toward reform, Dr. Bigby said she has heard others say the state has not moved fast enough.
“I hear anxiety,” she said. “I also hear people say the system is untenable.”