Category: Private Payors

Just days after his inauguration, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to delay further implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). This is just one of many steps the President and Congress plan to take in an effort to repeal the ACA. It sounds simple – just a few strokes of a pen and this behemoth of a law will disappear into history. But will it? Aside from the individual mandate and Medicaid expansion, two of the most famous and controversial pieces of the ACA, there are countless others. The ACA itself required the creation of nearly fifty new entities, with each of those entities authorized to implement other new entities or programs. For example, the ACA authorized the creation of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI), which has created over eighty innovation models with the goal of increasing the quality and efficiency of patient care while decreasing the cost. This new relationship between cost and quality in health care is termed “value based purchasing,” and it is an idea that has taken root beyond the reaches of the ACA. Over 65% of the … Continue reading →