Whether or not accountable care organizations become a permanent part of the healthcare landscape, most experts agree that hospital-physician integration is a growing trend that has the potential for significant improvements in efficiency, quality and cost savings. Peggy Naas, MD,…
Integration & Physician Issues
An inquiry by the Senate Finance Committee has produced a report summarizing the risks of physician owned distributors.
A new plan from the Obama administration will feature “secret shoppers” who will pose as patients and call physician offices for appointments, according to a New York Times report. Many physicians are distressed over the secret shopper method of the…
California’s John Muir Health is making plans to launch an accountable care organization by July 2012, according to a San Francisco Business Times report. The ACO will be comprised of the two John Muir hospitals in Walnut Creek and Concord,…
Health4, a collaboration between OhioHealth and the Medical Group of Ohio, has announced it will collaborate with Ohio-based health insurer Medical Mutual to control healthcare costs and improve coordinated care, according to a joint news release. Columbus-based OhioHealth, an 18-hospital…
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1. Approximately 40 percent of healthcare administrators and physicians say physician-staffing alignment is the biggest challenge with accountable care organizations. A June survey based on 882 responses found 40 percent attributing delayed progress towards ACOs to alignment. After physician and…
Eighteen independent cardiologists from The Oregon Clinic in Portland will join Renton, Wash.-based Providence Health & Services, effective July 1, according to an article from the Lund Report. Craig Fausel, MD, CEO and president of The Oregon Clinic, said the…
The University of Kansas Cancer Center in Kansas City and Overland Park-based Kansas City Cancer Center have closed a merger to form what they say is one of the largest academic cancer treatment programs in the country, according to a…
Healthcare leaders believe the percentage of physicians on hospitals’ active staffs who are employed will increase from 10 percent today to 25 percent by 2013, according to a Deloitte white paper. Physicians are increasingly seeking hospitals as well, evidenced by…
A Wall Street Journal editorial has lambasted accountable care organizations, calling the model a “fiasco” based on top-down micromanagement. The editorial notes the proposed ACO rule is “so awful that even the models for it say they won’t participate.” It…