Linda Riddell, VP, Strategic Initiatives, Validation Institute
- No Pain, Still Pills? Claims for almost 30 percent of physician office visits where an opioid is prescribed do not have a pain-related condition listed among the first five diagnoses, according to a recent Annals of Internal Medicine article. It may be that something funny is going on, or that claims data is flawed for this kind of patient.
- Medicare Accountable Care Organizations measure up on savings . . . sort of. Some say Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) is the largest and most successful venture to measure savings and pay providers based upon performance. So, why hasn’t it saved Medicare any money? The ACOs who didn’t save money also didn’t send any money back to Medicare – that’s the snag. See Health Affairs for an excellent summary.
- For an article chock full of different ways to measure health, health status, inputs, outputs, efficiency, and quality, check out Is US Medical Care Inefficient?` From JAMA’s Open Network.
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