Posts by Ellen Andrews
Growing percent of AccessHealth CT members are not using their coverage
A new survey by AccessHealth CT found that 36% of their customers had not used their health coverage, compared to 26% last year. One in four (28%) don’t have a primary care provider. Enrollment in qualified health plans is now 96, 966, down 13,129 from the open enrollment period earlier this year. The biggest reason…
Read MoreCare delivered by CT family members worth $5.9 billion, but capacity is uncertain
In 2013 almost half a million CT residents provided 427 million hours of unpaid critical health care services to family members according to an updatedreport by AARP. The value of that care was $5.9 billion, about what CT spends on Medicaid in total. Family care is expanding and becoming a vital piece of our health…
Read MoreSIM underservice protections get a cool reception, weak ethics policy adopted
Thursday the Equity and Access Council delivered to the SIM Steering Committee a draft report with recommendationsto avoid underservice in SIM’s planned payment reforms. Advocates were successful in getting a provision in the SIM final plan that prohibited payment of shared savings to provider networks that systematically denied needed care to generate those savings. The…
Read MoreStudy finds CT early Medicaid expansion reduced hospital uncompensated care
A new study published in this month’s Health Affairs finds that CT hospital Medicaid revenue grew by 7 to 8% after CT took advantage of the ACA’s early Medicaid expansion option in 2010. The study also finds that uncompensated care costs to CT hospitals were one third lower than they would have been without the…
Read MoreNew tool allows comparison of local surgeons’ safety record
Patients considering surgery often check their hospitals’ quality rating, but the your surgeon’s safety rating can be even more important. Half of US hospitals have surgeons with both high and low complication rates. ProPublica’s new Surgeon Scorecard allows patients to compare the safety record of surgeons by hospital. ProPublica used Medicare data to calculate surgeon’s…
Read MoreMedicaid phone wait times drop significantly
At last week’s Medicaid Council meeting we heard about strong progress toward reducing phone wait times. Average wait times dropped 52% from April to May while abandoned calls fell 42%. By the last week of June, average wait times were down to 11 minutes from 57 minutes in March. The improvements resulted in 6,466 more…
Read MoreCT earns an F on heath price transparency laws, again
CT joined all but five states nationally earning an F grade for public reporting of health prices according to Catalyst for Health Care Reform’s 2015 Report Card on State Price Transparency Laws. The report assesses state laws, regulations and public websites to make health care prices public, allowing consumers to base purchasing decisions on the…
Read MoreSIM ethics concerns intensify with first grants choice
Monday the Lieutenant Governor’s office announced the award of SIM’s first grants from federal funds; two of the four recipients are represented on theSIM Steering Committee. The members represent Northeast Medical Group (Yale-New Haven affiliate) and St. Vincent’s Health Partners. This would have been prohibited under the state’s Code of Ethics but for a loophole…
Read MoreJuly web quiz on CT hospital quality
Test your knowledge of Connecticut hospital quality. Take the July CT Health Policy Webquiz.
Read MoreCT health reform progress dips again
Unfortunately CT’s progress toward health reform dropped again to 27.5% this month, undermining last month’s gain. News that the state’s uninsured rate may not have dropped much, sharp increases in insurance premiums, SIM’s ethics, transparency and underservice council issues and budget cuts, especially HUSKY parents, all contributed to the decline. Bright spots include restoration of…
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