Disruptors

The Physician Preference Item (PPI) market is loaded with excess that drives up costs.  In today’s changing healthcare economy, hospitals can no longer afford to do business the same old way. Implant Partners helps hospitals and surgeons by offering top quality,…

As a youth, I found the Loch Ness Monster fascinating. You would see grainy pictures of what looked like a head or part of its snakelike body breeching the surface of the water. This raised many forms of imaginative thoughts.

Healthcare providers are buying heavily into new care initiatives, like accountable care organizations, bundled payments and risk-sharing contracts, but according to a new article in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, these may ultimately be repeating past flawed strategies.

The number of ambulatory surgery center operating rooms doubled from 2001 through 2011, raising some competitive challenges for hospitals, according to an infographic from Objective Health.

ASC Strategies, a company devoted to strategic leadership in the migration of surgery from hospitals to the outpatient setting, has changed its name to Avanza Healthcare Strategies, according to a company news release.

Most accountable care organizations, regardless of if they are formed by hospitals, health systems or physician groups, are primary-care based. After all, patients are generally attributed to ACOs based on their primary care provider.

Cigna has joined forces with physicians affiliated with Boulder (Colo.) Community Hospital's Community Medical Associates to launch a collaborative accountable care initiative, the payer's version of an accountable care organization.

Many of the established accountable care organizations have been formed by hospitals and insurance companies, with those executives having the final say in ACO-related matters.

Optima Health, Norfolk, Va.-based Sentara Healthcare's health plan, and Johnson City, Tenn.-based Integrated Solutions Health Network, an affiliated company of Mountain States Health Alliance, have formed an accountable care organization network in southwest Virginia.

After CMS announced 106 new Medicare accountable care organizations in January, only 35 new commercial ACOs have been announced, according to a Health Affairs blog written by David Muhlestein from Leavitt Partners.