providers
CT Healthcare employment is slowly rebounding, except for nursing homes
Download the report Like other Connecticut workers, healthcare employment was hit hard by the pandemic in March 2020, according to data from the CT Department of Labor. Since then, hospital employment has partially rebounded but not in nursing and residential facilities. At its start, the COVID pandemic sharply increased demand in a few healthcare sectors…
Read MoreSign on letter voices deep concerns with primary care capitation
Today twenty-five independent advocates and providers signed a letter to the Office of Health Strategy opposing capitation of primary care services across Connecticut. The letter shares serious concerns with the Office of Health Strategy’s (OHS) plan to shift all primary care in Connecticut to a capitated payment model. The current concerns echo advocates’ and legislators’…
Read MoreCTNJ op-ed: Patient-centered or doctor-centered? Primary care planning is off track
Several state agencies and their committees are planning to expand primary care in Connecticut – that’s a good thing. But it’s being driven by primary care doctors and their needs rather than patients. Read more
Read MoreConnecticut hospital systems vary in reducing low-value care
A new report published in JAMA Internal Medicine on low-value care provided to Medicare beneficiaries at the health system level offers actionable tools to improve effective care on the ground. Healthcare services that provide little or no health benefit, may harm patients, increase costs, and waste resources are low-value. Examples include prostate specific antigen testing…
Read MoreOnly one CT hospital makes social responsibility honor roll
Among Connecticut hospitals, only William Backus received A’s on health equity, the value of care, and health outcomes, according to the latest Lown Institute Hospital Social Responsibility Index. Backus ranked #71 among US hospitals overall. The Index scores over 3,000 US hospitals on their performance in responsibility to their community. Seventy-five US hospitals, including Backus,…
Read MoreCTNJ: OP-ED | Legislators Hear How RI Saved 2 Hospitals From Private Equity, Other Solutions to High Insurance Premiums
On Friday, in a forum sponsored by state Rep. Kerry Wood, six national and local experts gave legislators specific policy tools to help with health care market consolidation and rising drug prices that are driving up health insurance premiums. Legislators also got specific tools used by Rhode Island to avoid private equity abuses experienced in…
Read MoreLegislative forum on drivers of rising health costs
Connecticut legislators will hear from experts on the drivers of rising health insurance premiums and options to control costs next Friday, September 24th at noon. The forum — Consolidation, Private Equity, and Drug Prices in Health Care Costs — is sponsored by Rep. Kerry Wood, Co-Chair of the Insurance and Real Estate Committee. The forum…
Read MoreGood and bad Medicaid PCMH, PCMH Plus updates
At today’s MAPOC Care Management Committee, we learned that Medicaid’s successful Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) program is growing and keeping up with higher enrollment due to COVID. In disappointing news, we also learned that the controversial PCMH Plus program has fewer care managers than expected and only 36% of ACO member advisory committees have any…
Read MoreCTNJ: CT needs to focus on real health reform
Connecticut insurance premiums were the sixth highest among states for both individual and family coverage in 2019. Making healthcare more affordable was the drumbeat from voters last year. But CT policymakers have responded with weak options that kick the can down the road. Controlling the drivers of health costs is advanced placement politics. Powerful industries…
Read MoreBook Club: Medical Apartheid
Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present is very difficult to read. I stopped and re-started several times. You may know something about the Tuskegee syphilis project, but the wanton use and abuse of Black Americans as medical subjects goes much farther and continues into…
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