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Rural Health Transformation: A Proving Ground for State Primary Care Investment
The $50 billion federal Rural Health Transformation (RHT) Program is an unprecedented injection of capital averaging $200M per state annually through 2030. While legally earmarked for rural areas, smart state leaders know this isn’t just rural relief; it’s the launchpad for broader statewide primary care transformation. When you pair $1B per state in federal investment…
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State Primary Care Funding Strategy: From Spending Targets to Plans
Over the last several years, headlines have touted that multiple states are doubling their primary care spending as a percentage of total health expenditures. But only five states[1] have formal, enforceable primary care spending targets. And five additional states participating in CMS’s AHEAD program have committed to increasing primary care spending as a share of…
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State Primary Care Investment Strategy: Nine Key Levers
While high-quality primary care is the foundation of an effective health system, simply setting an ambitious primary care spending target does not guarantee better care, access, or equity. In recent years, more states have announced plans to increase or even “double” primary care spending as a share of total health expenditures. Yet only a small…
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State Primary Care Funding Strategy: An Infrastructure Investment Fund
Written by a former healthcare investment banker, who raised over $2 billion for voluntary hospitals, HMOs and related organizations, and the author of Rethinking Primary Care Investment Strategy and Nine Key Levers: A Framework for Implementing States’ Primary Care Investment Strategies. Any state that wants to invest in primary care should consider establishing a Primary…
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Rethinking Primary Care Investment Strategy
As a former healthcare investment banker, I observe what others have pointed out: that the U.S. will not fix its primary care crisis with higher annual expenditures alone. I argue for treating primary care as essential infrastructure by expanding the workforce through state-backed financing and loan relief, building modern information infrastructure with interoperable data platforms…
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Maximizing the Value of Employee Benefits with Quality Measurement & Reporting
Peter A. Wadsworth (LinkedIn 8/8/2024) Investing in healthcare quality initiatives is a cost-effective strategy for employers. This approach aims to maximize the value of their expenditures on employee health benefits. READ MORE
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Better Healthcare Policy Group convenes in Washington, DC
March 14, 2024 The Better Healthcare Policy Group convened a meeting at the American College of Surgeons in Washington, DC, to catalyze discussions on the implementation of the Better Care Plan. The gathering included a diverse group of nearly 40 payers, employer coalitions, providers, patient advocates, patient safety and health quality professionals convening to discuss…
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The Better Care Plan: a blueprint for improving America’s healthcare system
Stephen M Shortell, , John S Toussaint, , George C Halvorson, Jon M Kingsdale, Richard M Scheffler, Allyson Y Schwartz, Peter A Wadsworth, Gail Wilensky HealthAffairs Scholar 6/20/2023 Abstract The United States falls far short of its potential for delivering care that is effective, efficient, safe, timely, patient-centered, and equitable. We put forward the Better Care Plan, an overarching blueprint to…
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Publicly Reported Health Outcomes: A National Initiative To Improve Care
Peter A. Wadsworth, Stephen M. Shortell, John S. Toussaint (Health Affairs Forefront 7/19/22) In this article, we describe the rationale and design criteria for a public-private approach to improving the quality and value of health care in the United States: a Publicly Reported Health Outcomes (PRHO) program. This long-term, aspirational initiative, focused on results and…
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The Better Care Plan Advantage
Peter A. Wadsworth (LinkedIn 12/11/2020) The Better Care Plan is a national health strategy to improve the affordability of health coverage and the quality of care received by Americans. It was developed by these eight senior healthcare executives, economists, and health policy researchers. Conclusions Medicare Advantage plans currently outperform Medicare fee-for-service (Parts A, B and…
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Medicare-for-All Part II: A Risk Assessment
Medicare-for-All Part II: A Risk assessment published on LinkedIn August 30, 2019. There are substantial obstacles to MFA becoming law, which render MFA a high-risk proposition that could crowd out more moderate legislative proposals, include: Elimination of Private Health Insurance (Sec. 107), an industry that represents more than 6 % of our Gross Domestic Product. The Freedom…
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Medicare-for-All Part III: Assessing the Alternatives published
This article compares Medicare-for-All with several alternatives including a public option, Medicare Extra for All, the Healthy America Program (revised) and Medicare Advantage for All using six criteria, such as universality of coverage, affordability, per capita costs and implementation time-frame. It concludes with seven recommendations, most notably nationalization of Medicaid and substantial changes to the…
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Medicare Advantage Study Group formed
The MA Study Group has been formed to explore ways to extend prepaid medical care enhanced with 21st century technology to all Americans. The group currently consists of three health economists and three healthcare executives, who began a discussion group this summer.
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Top 10 (lowest) Hospital Death Scores
Three California and two New York and two Illinois hospitals are among the top 10 U.S. hospitals with the lowest (best) Hospital Outcomes Death Scores. Other states represented include Texas, Michigan and Ohio. Hospital Outcomes Scores (HOS) have been developed by Amory Associates based on data submitted to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)…
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Nine practices for better capital-investment management (McKinsey & Company)
By Matt Banholzer, Ashish Chandarana, and David Straden Executives can improve performance by mastering several practices and adopting a capital-portfolio-management system powered by a comprehensive digital application. READ MORE