Hospitals save $100 million in Medicare costs under state experiment

[Greenbeard]

Interesting early results from one of the little state experiments enabled by the ACA.

Maryland's state government has been setting hospital prices for decades but last year they kicked it up a notch, using authority in the ACA to essentially put their state's hospitals on budgets.

Here's an article from last year looking at what Maryland has started doing and how it's changed the game: Global budgets pushing Maryland hospitals to target population health.

Now the state's hospital association is out with a preliminary look at the results in the first year and they're promising: Hospitals save $100 million in Medicare costs

Maryland hospitals collectively generated more than $100 million in Medicare savings in the first year of an experimental payment system being watched closely by the federal government as a possible national model for reducing health care costs.

The state's medical institutions agreed last year to a five-year agreement with the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. It drastically changed the way they did business and aimed to curb costs, in part by reducing expensive hospital stays and handling more patient care at the doctor's office.

"Hospitals at the blink of an eye really changed their systems into something that hasn't been broadly tested before — and we are pleased with the first year results," said Carmela Coyle, CEO of the Maryland Hospital Association.

Hospital officials — and health care advocates — also contend that the new cost-cutting effort has not come at the expense of patient care.

An unusual approach but one to keep an eye on.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

Many don't remember the huge hit hospitals took under Ronnie Ray-Gun's socialist EMTALA. The US no longer has burn units, trauma centers and many clinics and hospitals have closed. Professional staff have taken huge cuts in pay and benefits.

Hopefully, other states will look at this and follow suit. And just maybe we can get our health care system back on track.

Thank you Mr President.

 

[Sun Devil 92]

socialHeadline

 

[Stephanie]

so in other words it should be called.,CommiCare

what the hell is wrong the people in Maryland.

when did we start living by a Globull budget? You better open your eyes. Obama has sold us out to UN

 

[Stephanie]

snip

Obama’s Legacy: Runaway Deficits, Debt And Health Costs
he Budget: When President Obama released his first budget plan in 2009, he called it a “New Era of Responsibility.” What he produced was irresponsibility on a historic scale.

“Government has failed to fully confront the deep, systemic problems that year after year have only become a larger and larger drag on our economy,” Obama said in his inaugural budget plan, promising to make “the tough choices necessary to … put our nation on sound fiscal footing.”

all of it here
Obama’s Legacy: Runaway Deficits, Debt And Health Costs

 

[Arianrhod]

so in other words it should be called.,CommiCare

what the hell is wrong the people in Maryland.

when did we start living by a Globull budget? You better open your eyes. Obama has sold us out to UN

Why is it bad for hospitals to save money?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

..and by put them on a budget you mean they had to turn away the Untermenschen and hand them aspirins?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

socialHeadline

The Blues in Maryland and Tennessee, both with the largest market share on the exchanges in their states, are seeking increases of more than 30 percent. "

But good thing they're somehow saving in Medicare

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/how-affordable-is-the-affordable-care-act-118428#ixzz3yYjfv2nh

 

[Arianrhod]

socialHeadline

The Blues in Maryland and Tennessee, both with the largest market share on the exchanges in their states, are seeking increases of more than 30 percent. "

But good thing they're somehow saving in Medicare

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/how-affordable-is-the-affordable-care-act-118428#ixzz3yYjfv2nh

Stephanie claims Politico is not a reliable source.

 

[Sun Devil 92]

..and by put them on a budget you mean they had to turn away the Untermenschen and hand them aspirins?

Aspirins on a limited release basis.

 

[Sun Devil 92]

Hospitals could save a lot of money if we allowed them to turn away people at the ER.

 

[Arianrhod]

Hospitals could save a lot of money if we allowed them to turn away people at the ER.

Damn Reagan anyway, huh?

 

[Stephanie]

..and by put them on a budget you mean they had to turn away the Untermenschen and hand them aspirins?

maybe they're giving them breathalyzers and telling them to go die or something

 

[Arianrhod]

..and by put them on a budget you mean they had to turn away the Untermenschen and hand them aspirins?

maybe they're giving them breathalyzers and telling them to go die or something

Can't answer Post #6 or won't?

 

[Sun Devil 92]

..and by put them on a budget you mean they had to turn away the Untermenschen and hand them aspirins?

maybe they're giving them breathalyzers and telling them to go die or something

Hospitals should not be required to do anymore than they want to do.

The market will weed them out.

Look at Medical Tourism.

Medical tourism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[CrusaderFrank]

..and by put them on a budget you mean they had to turn away the Untermenschen and hand them aspirins?

maybe they're giving them breathalyzers and telling them to go die or something

People still surprised that obamacare is such a total clusterfuck, look who invented it

 

[Arianrhod]

..and by put them on a budget you mean they had to turn away the Untermenschen and hand them aspirins?

maybe they're giving them breathalyzers and telling them to go die or something

Hospitals should not be required to do anymore than they want to do.

The market will weed them out.

Look at Medical Tourism.

Medical tourism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So fuck the Hippocratic oath, huh?

 

[Greenbeard]

what the hell is wrong the people in Maryland.

when did we start living by a Globull budget? You better open your eyes. Obama has sold us out to UN

At first I thought this was a joke but then I saw the poster. Global here means inclusive of all inpatient and outpatient revenue received by a hospital for the calendar year. It doesn't mean global as in Planet Earth. No U.N., no Illuminati.

I'm glad this thread was bumped though, because the first results published in NEJM came out last November. They were extremely promising.

In 2013, Maryland committed to limiting annual growth of per capita hospital costs for all payers to 3.58%,the historical growth rate of the gross state product. According to hospital financial reports and claims, these costs grew by 1.47% between 2013 and 2014 for Maryland residents treated at Maryland hospitals — 2.11 percentage points lower than the agreed-on growth rate (see graph).

In 2014, Medicare’s per capita hospital costs grew by 1.07% nationally and decreased by 1.08% in Maryland. Given these trends, Maryland has already saved Medicare $116 million.

By implementing a quality-incentive program in which hospitals’ global budgets were adjusted on the basis of all-payer performance on these measures, Maryland was able to reduce the rate of potentially preventable conditions by 26.3% between 2013 and 2014, according to its Health Services Cost Resource Commission.

A number of the 65 potentially preventable conditions also overlap with conditions in Medicare’s Hospital-Acquired Condition program. Maryland reduced the rates of almost all these conditions among patients covered by all payers and among Medicare patients (see table).

Meanwhile their hospitals continue to exceed every target they agreed to in their negotiations with the feds.

And their hospitals are still good: Johns Hopkins remains a top three hospital nationally (behind only Mass General and Mayo), despite being on a budget for over a year now.

This remains one of the most interesting experiments in the country right now. We'll see where it goes.

 

[Greenbeard]

Hospitals could save a lot of money if we allowed them to turn away people at the ER.

They can also save a lot of money if they get to people before they show up in the ER, as Maryland is showing. Once hospitals can generate margin by keeping people healthy instead of increasing service volume, they've got a whole new business model to operate under. One in which health care isn't just about waiting for acute events to hit and making money off them, but rather about focusing on the health of the community outside the hospital's walls.

 

[BlueGin]

Hospitals could save a lot of money if we allowed them to turn away people at the ER.

Medicare already fines hospitals millions for what they deem "unnecessary" treatment....so why not.