Payer+Provider in the News – September 2012

BOSTON– October 16, 2012: During August and September 2012, Payer+Provider Syndicate spent a lot of time thinking about Accountable Care Organizations, hospital mergers, and wellness initiatives. The transition to provider risk-bearing has caused hospitals to consider merging and to seek to better understand the drivers of their financial and medical performance. Dr. Adam Powell spoke with reporters to discuss Steward Health Care’s plan to buy Mercy Hospital and Prime Healthcare’s plan to buy Lower Bucks Hospital. The first article appeared within the online and print editions of the Healthcare Finance News newsletter, while the second was syndicated to NBC News. Dr. Powell subsequently spoke to healthcare leaders at the Massachusetts Health Data Consortium about how analytics can be used to improve performance within ACOs. As was summarized by SearchHealthIT, the talk stated that ACOs will be able to gain a competitive advantage by having a better understanding of cost accounting and by improving the performance of factors driving health outcomes. As improving wellness is one of the key ways in which ACOs can reduce their costs, Dr. Powell provided insights into a series of articles quantifying the impact of wellness interventions published by dailyRx. The articles discussed the financial impact of interventions related to smoking, weight loss, dialysis, substance abuse treatment, and chronic pain management. dailyRx also wrote an article highlighting Payer+Provider’s findings on the negative impact of provider fatigue on claim quality.

Other Payer+Provider experts have recently been featured in the news as well. Dr. Michael Housman spoke on NPR’s Marketplace about how analytics can be applied to workforce decisions. Meanwhile, Dr. Ashwin Patel was featured in an article describing how hospitals have been working to forge closer relationships with women in the wake of healthcare reform. As Payer+Provider Syndicate is a recognized leader in assessing healthcare markets and the return on investment (ROI) of wellness interventions, numerous media outlets have relied upon Payer+Provider’s opinions when substantiating their articles.