A new complex rule is about to change the entire US healthcare industry. It will replace the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) and streamline the three programs. The NPRM for MACRA was passed in 2015 and after the comments and feedbacks from numerous healthcare experts, the final rule with comment period has been released by CMS.

Since 1966, Americans have received more Nobel Prizes in Medicine than rest of the world combined with astonishing advancement in medical treatments, but how much of it reflected on ground level is still a troublesome figure. The soaring costs of healthcare; the amount spent on health care is approximately 20% of the country’s GDP and the amount spent on one person per year is going to be roughly $10,000 in 2017; much higher than any other country. Despite ACA, more than 30 million people in the U.S. are still uninsured. With so many concerns, the healthcare industry needs innovation to change this bleak picture.

Leaders from more than 550 ACOs gathered in Washington, D.C. for NAACOS fall conference. These were esteemed healthcare professionals like ACO leaders, clinical leaders, administrators, executives, payers exhibitors, and CMS officials who shared invaluable insights on current healthcare standards and the scopes of improvement in them. We had the chance to interact with these renowned healthcare personalities and understand various matters of paramount importance. Speakers shared their opinions and ideas that would make healthcare equitable and affordable, here are our key takeaways from this NAACOS conference.

The process of measuring the performance against a set standard is benchmarking, a simple concept that plays a major role in improving the quality. Today, the need of benchmarking in healthcare is more than ever. Currently, the numbers related to US healthcare create a sense of urgency and demand a future-proof strategy to overcome the mounting challenges. Despite being one of the most developed countries, US is way behind other developed countries.

According to a survey almost 50% of the physicians do not understand MACRA. With less than five months to full implementation of MACRA, are we ready to embrace one of the most elaborate laws of US? And most importantly will it produce the needed positive outcomes?The program is expected to improve the current standards, sort the most persistent problems and create opportunities to rework and revise Medicare. How will all this happen?

The digitization of healthcare was a much-needed change brought after years of hard work and effort. One might wonder how could one justify the expenditure of 10 billion dollars in a span of five years just on digitization! The problem intensifies when after several studies we find out that EHRs only reciprocate around 30-35 cents on a dollar and sometimes the figure dips to 15 cents!

Darwin lived more than two hundred years, and his views on change are accurate even today.

In the last blog, we covered the basics of the upcoming rule MACRA. Just like many other laws, MACRA too is facing a lot of criticism. This has a lot to do with the payment adjustment criteria and the small time window to adapt to it. Under MIPS, practices get adjusted payments based on their performances. Whether it will be positive or negative, that depends on the performance of the practice.

Today, the healthcare services in the US are costlier than ever. Over $10,000 is being spent on one citizen in the US as healthcare charges, but is it reciprocating the kind of health that was expected? Are we even close? Evidently, spending money won’t lead us anywhere unless we are moving in the right direction. It is important that we plot a roadmap to personalized care to get better generalized results.

Every day millions of members of healthcare community try harder to improve the population health. Doctors, researchers, nurses and other numerous prominent members try their level best to fight the challenges current healthcare industry faces. But more often than not, we see health deteriorating with age. The older you are, the more prone you are to diseases, but this does not mean that if one is young, there is any assurance that one would remain 100% healthy.