MCAG Blog

Here are some more recent, notable news stories in the healthcare industry. Start your week off right by giving them a quick read and stay informed:

• Is Aetna, Medicity deal the beginning of the end for independent HIE vendors? (via Fierce Health IT): While Aetna’s $500 million acquisition of health information exchange vendor Medicity this week appears to be a direct reaction to UnitedHealth Group’s deal for Axolotl earlier this year, the move is much bigger than one-upsmanship, and likely will start a ripple effect that will end with independent HIE vendors going the way of the dinosaur, writes Chilmark Research blogger John Moore…
• Rapidly Evolving Physician-Payment Policy — More Than the SGR (via NEJM): Since 2002, the physician-payment policy that has been closest to home for practicing physicians has involved repeated down-to-the-wire congressional interventions to avert large Medicare payment rate cuts specified by the sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula. Less visible, but potentially as important or more important over the longer term, has been a series of steps to revamp the resource-based relative-value scale (RBRVS) underpinning the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS), with the goal of more accurately reflecting the relative costs of providing different physician services. The recently enacted health care reform law, known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), reinforced efforts to revamp the physician fee schedule and authorized initiatives to explore broader payment reforms such as accountable care organizations and bundled payments…
• Continue reading →