Growing availability of clinical information technology in physician practices.
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Data Collection↗
Biomedical subjects
Joy M Grossman
Publications and source records attributed to Joy M Grossman.
Physicians slow to adopt patient e-mail.
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Diffusion of Innovation↗
Clinical information technology gaps persist among physicians.
Physicians in smaller practices continue to lag well behind physicians in larger practices in reporting the availability of clinical information technology (IT) in their offices, according to a new national study from the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC). The proportion of physicians reporting access to IT for each of five clinical activities increased across all practice settings between 2000-01 and 2004-05. Adoption gaps between small and large practices persisted, however, for two of the clinical activities--obtaining treatment guidelines and exchanging clinical data with other physicians--and widened for the other three--accessing patient notes, generating preventive care reminders and writing prescriptions. In contrast, clinical IT was generally as likely or more likely to be available to physicians in practices treating larger proportions of vulnerable and underserved patients as other physicians, a pattern that did not change between the two periods
Age Factors↗
Patient cost-sharing innovations: promises and pitfalls.
Over the next decade, health plans and employers will refine patient cost sharing to encourage workers to seek more cost-effective care, according to a panel of market and health policy experts at a Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC) conference. Instead of using a single, large deductible, employers and health plans will likely vary patient cost sharing by choice of provider, site and type of service, so patients choosing less effective care options pay more. Employers also will try to limit financial hardships for low-income workers by, for example, varying cost sharing based on workers' income. However, significant obstacles could hinder the effectiveness of emerging cost-sharing strategies, including inadequate information on quality of care and provider resistance.
Community Participation↗
For-profit conversion and merger trends among Blue Cross Blue Shield health plans.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield (BCBS) health plans, which insure nearly one in three Americans, historically have operated as local, nonprofit or mutual organizations. However, since the mid-1990s, BCBS plans increasingly have converted to for-profit companies and merged with Blue plans in other states. State insurance regulators, charged with weighing the costs and benefits of conversions and mergers to consumers, often wrestle with the legal complexities of these deals, according to Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC) site visits to 12 nationally representative communities. Although state regulatory scrutiny has slowed the pace of conversions recently, conversion activity is likely to accelerate again as the political and regulatory landscapes shift and plans adapt conversion strategies. The limited evidence available from HSC site visits and conversion proceedings suggests that conversions and mergers have had neither significant negative nor positive effects on consumers.
Blue Cross Blue Shield Insurance Plans↗
Preferred provider organizations and Medicare: is there an advantage?
A key component of the new Medicare reform law is an overhaul of Medicare managed care, including a strong emphasis on recruiting private plans--especially preferred provider organizations (PPOs)--to participate in the new Medicare Advantage program. Citing the popularity of PPOs for privately insured Americans, proponents have touted PPOs as critical to injecting more and better competition into Medicare. This study, based on findings from the Center for Studying Health System Change's (HSC) site visits to 12 nationally representative communities, explores the reasons for the strong growth in commercial PPO enrollment and examines whether PPOs--as currently structured--can add value to Medicare. The available evidence suggests that the PPO model will face challenges in achieving the policy goals set forth in the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA), including increasing benefits, improving quality and slowing cost growth.
Cost Control↗
Limited information technology for patient care in physician offices.
Evidence of physicians' use of information technology (IT) to support patient care has been sketchy and anecdotal to date. However, new findings from the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC) show wide variation in information technology adoption across physician practices, particularly by physician practice size. In 2001, nearly 60 percent of physicians in traditional practice settings--primarily solo or relatively small group practices where the vast majority of Americans receive care--reported that their practice used information technology in no more than one of the five following clinical functions: obtaining treatment guidelines, exchanging clinical data with other physicians, accessing patient notes, generating treatment reminders for the physician's use and writing prescriptions. Highest levels of IT support for patient care were found in staff- and group-model health maintenance organization (HMO) practices, followed by medical school faculty practices and large group practices. Overall rates of information technology adoption may have increased since 2001, but the variation in IT adoption by practice setting is unlikely to have changed
Benchmarking↗
An empty toolbox? Changes in health plans' approaches for managing costs and care.
OBJECTIVE: To examine how health plans have changed their approaches for managing costs and utilization in the wake of the recent backlash against managed care. DATA SOURCES/STUDY SETTING: Semistructured interviews with health plan executives, employers, providers, and other health care decision makers in 12 metropolitan areas that were randomly selected to be nationally representative of communities with more than 200,000 residents. Longitudinal data were collected as part of the Community Tracking Study during three rounds of site visits in 1996-1997, 1998-1999, and 2000-2001. STUDY DESIGN: Interviews probed about changes in the design and operation of health insurance products--including provider contracting and network development, benefit packages, and utilization management processes--and about the rationale and perceived impact of these changes. DATA COLLECTION/EXTRACTION METHODS: Data from more than 850 interviews were coded, extracted, and analyzed using computerized text analysis software. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Health plans have begun to scale back or abandon their use of selected managed care tools in most communities, with selective contracting and risk contracting practices fading most rapidly and completely. In turn, plans increasingly have sought cost savings by shifting costs to consumers. Some plans have begun to experiment with new provider networks, payment systems, and referral practices designed to lower costs and improve service delivery. CONCLUSIONS: These changes promise to lighten administrative and financial burdens for physicians and hospitals, but they also threaten to increase consumers' financial burdens.
Contract Services↗
Medicare contracting risk/Medicare risk contracting: a life-cycle view from twelve markets.
OBJECTIVE: To examine the evolution of the Medicare HMO program from 1996 to 2001 in 12 nationally representative urban markets by exploring how the separate and confluent influences of government policy initiatives and health plans' strategic aims and operational experience affected the availability of HMOs to Medicare beneficiaries. DATA SOURCE: Qualitative data gathered from 12 nationally representative urban communities with more than 200,000 residents each, in tandem with quantitative information from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and other sources. STUDY DESIGN: Detailed interview protocols, developed as part of the multiyear, multimethod Community Tracking Study of the Center for Studying Health System Change, were used to conduct three rounds of interviews (1996, 1998, and 2000-2001) with health plans and providers in 12 nationally representative urban communities. A special focus during the third round of interviews was on gathering information related to Medicare HMOs' experience in the previous four years. This information was used to build on previous research to develop a longitudinal perspective on health plans' experience in Medicare's HMO program. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: From 1996 to 2001, the activities and expectations of health plans in local markets underwent a rapid and dramatic transition from enthusiasm for the Medicare HMO product, to abrupt reconsideration of interest corresponding to changes in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, on to significant retrenchment and disillusionment. Policy developments were important in their own right, but they also interacted with shifts in the strategic aims and operational experiences of health plans that reflect responses to insurance underwriting cycle pressures and pushback from providers. CONCLUSION: The Medicare HMO program went through a substantial reversal of fortune during the study period, raising doubts about whether its downward course can be altered. Market-level analysis reveals that virtually all momentum for the program has been lost and that enrollment is shrinking back to the levels and locations found in the mid-1990s.
Contract Services↗
Reversal of fortune: Medicare+Choice collides with market forces.
Private health plans' participation in Medicare was envisioned as a way to save taxpayers money and offer Medicare beneficiaries more choices and benefits. As enrollment grew, there were concerns about overpayments to some private health plans and wide geographic variation in plan payments. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (BBA) introduced significant payment changes and regulatory requirements for plans participating in the newly named Medicare+Choice (M+C) program. Since January 1999, scores of plans have reduced or ended their participation, disrupting coverage for more than two million seniors. While the BBA often is blamed for this turnabout, research by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC) indicates private market forces also played a key role in M+C's growing instability.
Budgets↗
As the health insurance underwriting cycle turns: what next?
After twenty-five years of a consistent health insurance underwriting cycle, the pattern of insurer profitability changed greatly in the 1990s, raising speculation about the future. We conclude from interviews with industry experts that health plan competition and limits on plans' ability to predict costs will continue to drive a cycle, albeit one even more muted than it was in the 1990s because of changes in industry structure and forecasting improvements. Plans will price closer to cost trends and forego the more heated price competition that drove major losses in the past, reducing premium volatility but possibly leading to higher average premiums.
Insurance, Health↗
Geography and destiny: local-market perspectives on developing Medicare Advantage regional plans.
The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (MMA) of 2003 established regional preferred provider organizations (PPOs) as a new private-plan option for beneficiaries in the Medicare Advantage (MA) program, starting in 2006. Developing network-based Medicare products uniformly priced across statewide or multistate regions presents unprecedented challenges and opportunities for health insurers. We held discussions with local health plan and hospital informants in six of the twelve Community Tracking Study (CTS) communities to obtain their perspectives on key considerations in evaluating whether they can and will offer regional PPO products under the MA program.
Aged↗
Hospital-physician portals: the role of competition in driving clinical data exchange.
Recent policy efforts to encourage the use of health information technology are emphasizing development of communitywide health information exchanges to share clinical data across patient care settings. Interviews in twelve U.S. communities show that most large hospitals have or are developing physician portals to provide admitting physicians with remote access to patient records, but there is little data sharing among unaffiliated organizations. Competition among hospitals for physicians is a key factor driving adoption of these proprietary systems. In contrast, provider and health plan competition and adversarial relationships between providers and plans are viewed as major barriers to communitywide clinical data sharing.
Ambulatory Care Information Systems↗
When the price isn't right: how inadvertent payment incentives drive medical care.
Unintended overpayment of some services, in combination with other market factors, is driving increased use of expensive care, which in turn could be an important driver of health care cost trends. Reimbursement systems are highly dependent on provider charge data that rarely provide accurate and up-to-date indicators of relative costs. As a result, newer services, in which productivity is increasing over time, tend to be more lucrative. As the largest payer, and one whose reimbursement policies are followed by private insurers and Medicaid programs, Medicare can address this issue by taking steps to make its prospective payment rates reflect relative costs more accurately.
Cost Control↗