quality
State budget deal restores coverage for 4,000 HUSKY parents, a move toward quality-based payments, and insurance protections
Policymakers have reached a $43 billion state budget deal to cover the next two fiscal years, on-time before the end of the session. For health policy folks, there is a lot to like in the deal but a few notes of caution. The best part is a partial restoration of HUSKY parents’ eligibility cuts from…
Read MoreYNHH transportation plan for controversial primary care shift troubling, concerns remain
Monday, Yale-New Haven Health System answered the state’s eighth set of questions about their controversial application with the Hill Health and Fairhaven Health Centers to move primary care for 25,000 mainly low-income New Haven area residents out of the current neighborhood sites to Long Wharf. Among many concerns voiced by patients, advocates and community leaders…
Read MoreCT needs to step up public health to keep people out of medical care
Connecticut ranks 29th among states in per person funding from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to the Trust for America’s Health. Connecticut spent only $29 per person on public health in 2017, down from $31 in 2014. That would be fine if the risks to the public’s health were also decreasing,…
Read MoreFor the Book Club: The Tyranny of Metrics
As the world moves toward data and analytics to evaluate progress (and it should), we need to be careful that the movement is meaningful. This must-read is full of cautionary tales, including a chapter on medicine, of mis-use of metrics to evaluate performance that ended up doing more harm than good and box-checking in place…
Read MorePractical Wisdom – The Right Way to Do the Right Thing
New to the Book Club Why do our institutions and systems, including healthcare, seem to be getting more complex and more costly but not better? This fascinating book argues that we have lost practical wisdom – the ability to balance the need for reasonable rules and standards with doing the right thing. The law of…
Read MoreMore questions for YNHH about controversial primary care proposal
Yesterday, the state Office of Health Strategy sent their eighth set of questions about the controversial application of Yale-New Haven Health System and their community health center partners to move primary care for 28,500 mainly low-income New Haven area residents out of the current neighborhood sites to Long Wharf. Among others, critical concerns have been…
Read MoreWhat We’re Reading
Pharma lobbyists flooded Maryland to block a drug-pricing bill. Opponents pushed back – and won. STAT – The story behind the story of how a group of consumer advocates and legislators were able to prevail over Pharma’s considerable resources to get a bill passed to push back on sky high drug prices and protect consumers…
Read MoreSIM primary care capitation proposal gets another tepid reception
This week, SIM presented to the Healthcare Cabinet their proposal to capitate primary care, initially for Medicare members, but eventually for all state residents. The proposal is to move primary care to capitated “bundles” – one for basic primary care services and a voluntary, supplemental payment for expanded activities such as infrastructure and HIT and…
Read MoreYNHH answers latest questions about controversial primary care proposal
Monday Yale-New Haven Health System and their community health center partners answered the latest set of questions from the state Office of Health Strategy (formerly OHCA) to their controversial plan to move primary care services for 28,000 low-income New Haven residents out of the current neighborhood sites to Log Wharf. Under the proposal, patients’ care…
Read MoreCTNJ: ACOs may be the new HMOs, And they need a watchdog
Care for a growing number of Connecticut residents is being directed by an Accountable Care Organization (ACO) and very few patients know it. Read more
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