Aligning Institutional Research Investment with Clinical Strategy: A Future-Focused Approach

A forward-thinking financial model can help hospital leaders better predict and balance potential gains and losses from incentives, penalties, volume changes, and other factors related to value-based payment.

To thrive in the increasingly disruptive healthcare environment of the future, accountable care organizations (ACOs) will need to develop a strategy that is data driven and consumer focused. It is becoming clear that, to enjoy long-term financial success, ACOs must position themselves to assume greater risk/reward models.

The ECG team has been chosen as a preferred vendor for the MassHealth DSRIP Technical Assistance (TA) Marketplace. The MassHealth TA Marketplace is a product of MassHealth—the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program—and contractor Abt Associates.

In the final rule for the fiscal year 2019 update to the inpatient prospective payment system, effective August 17, 2018, CMS announced a new round of applications due to the closure of Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island. This is only the 13th round of section 5506 cap space reallocation since passage of the PPACA.

Navigating the proposed program, Pathways to Success, can be daunting for new and existing ACOs. While it will take time before the final rule offers definitive guidance, here are seven important considerations that ACOs should begin to address now.

After a long delay in publishing guidance for the 2019 Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) application cycle, CMS issued a proposed rule on August 9, 2018, featuring significant revisions to the program.

Over the past few months, we’ve examined the timeline for building your BPCI Advanced program and reviewed what to do with the claims data released by CMS in May 2018. Now that you’ve received your data, it is time to further evaluate the opportunity to succeed under the BPCI Advanced program.

Organizations that applied for the CMS Bundled Payments for Care Improvement (BPCI) Advanced model are eagerly awaiting data from CMS. What will they do with it once it arrives?

Last Friday, President Trump, with the help of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, unveiled the administration’s “Blueprint to Lower Drug Prices.” As this issue was a central tenet of President Trump’s 2016 campaign platform, guidance on the administration’s approach to tackling drug prices has long been anticipated.