Susan Morse

McKesson and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona are partnering to create a new service that helps physician practices that may not be part of a value-based network take on risk as traditional accountable care organizations do.

As physicians study the Merit-based Incentive Payment System and Advanced Alternative Payment Models outlined in the newly proposed MACRA rule, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has released its finalized Quality Measure Development Plan in support of the new payment structure.

In the first major overhaul of Medicaid managed care requirements in more than a decade, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services published new rules on April 25 that affect how Medicaid works for the nearly two-thirds of beneficiaries who get their coverage through private managed care plans.

The new model is expected to work hand in hand with data and technologies to boost care, lower cost, and advance the industry toward becoming a learning health system.

The research also found that womens’ salaries grew at a higher rate than their male counterparts, while orthopedists, cardiologists, dermatologists are the highest-paid doctors.  

Rather than streamlining operations such as clinical and IT that could create significant savings, many merged organizations continue running acquired hospitals as individual entities, the consultancy found. 

The American Medical Association and 20 other groups called on the agency to refine Medicare Shared Savings to ramp up participation. 

With estimates that such programs can reduce costs by $3.27 for every dollar spent and building wellness centers can bring a 10 percent return, more and more providers and payers are getting into the wellness game.

The agency said it plans to add some 1,900 diagnosis codes and 3,651 hospital inpatient procedure codes to ICD-10.

CMS said it plans to add about 1,900 diagnosis codes and 3,651 hospital inpatient procedure codes to the coding system.