In this third of a series of four blogs about WTN’s 2014 Disruptive Healthcare Conference (DHC), I’ll focus on three disruptive innovation waves reshaping healthcare. These innovations could lead to better care for less cost. But will they happen fast enough to allow us to channel wasteful healthcare spending into efforts that would make our economy more competitive globally? New reimbursement models and incentives Slowly but surely, payers are adopting new approaches for reimbursing providers. One is pay-for-performance (e.g., Medicare won’t reimburse hospitals for avoidable re-admissions). Another is making providers financially accountable for a population’s healthcare (e.g., Accountable Care Models, introduced in Obama’s far reaching reform). These new models create financial incentives to keep people healthy, surface health issues earlier, move care to less-expensive settings, and avoid unnecessary tests and procedures. In addition, Obama reforms preclude insurers from kicking out the chronically ill,…
Why does the US have so much waste in its healthcare system?
In an earlier blog about WTN Media’s Disruptive Health Care recent conference I argued we spend between $900 billion and $1.3 trillion on non-value-added healthcare, aka waste. Why? First, we pay hospitals and physicians to do procedures, not to keep people healthy. Jeff Grossman, CEO of the University of Wisconsin Medical Foundation and a dean at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, pointed out that while there is talk of new models of care, providers still get paid largely on a fee-for-service basis; Aurora Health Care officials confirmed the same. Grossman added, “We are all focused on this efficiency thing right now, but I have to tell you that we make our money on waste … that is the name of the game. The focus on hospitals has to end before we can deliver healthcare. Delivery of healthcare (procedures) only accounts…