Healthcare

A Bridge for Healthcare Reform

Over the past decade, clinical co-management arrangements (CCMAs) have risen in popularity as a means to achieve a more integrated care delivery model. CCMAs have often been touted as an interim strategy to bridge hospitals to newer emerging models, but many hospitals have yet to cross that bridge.

January 20 is a significant date for healthcare providers—but not necessarily for the reason you think.

Yes, there is the inauguration of the 45^th President of the United States, who has vowed to “repeal and replace” the most significant healthcare legislation in recent history.

But that date has even greater significance for the many providers across the country who are struggling to cover the cost of care of an increasingly high-risk, low-income population.

Medicare turns 50 this week with a number of substantial challenges in its future, and its overall success may be one of the largest contributing factors. When Medicare was created in 1965, nearly half of all seniors in the United States were uninsured. The program covers 55 million people today, providing medical care to one in every six Americans.

On April 16, 2015, President Obama signed the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act into law, which repealed the much-maligned sustainable growth rate formula. Physicians are breathing a sigh of relief as the SGR repeal prevented steep reimbursement cuts that have been threatening physicians since the late 1990s. Now that the focus is off SGR, physicians and policy makers can shift focus to new patient care models that are supported under MACRA.