Western Pennsylvania Healthcare News

Covering healthcare news in the Pittsburgh region and beyond.

Banner Ad

Accountable Care Organization with Integrative Medicine

by

change-management-speaker-nick-jacobsBy Nick Jacobs

With the creation of Accountable Care Organizations as prescribed through the Affordable Care Act, Integrative Medicine could become a fully endorsed service-line by all Health Systems to be utilized in income creation and expense reduction for numerous aspects of care.

Integrative Medicine would be a critical component a Health System’s ACO organization by helping to improve overall community health and by managing both acute and chronic health conditions more effectively and efficiently than purely traditional medicine.  Integrative Medicine health coaches  can listen, observe and communicate early, to create healing solutions that enhance efficiency of communication, and anticipate and help to control or ameliorate the healthcare needs of patients in multiple settings; home, inpatient, or outpatient.

In a healing inpatient environment where the patient’s care is actually the center of their personal universe, we have seen significant reductions in patient stays, less infections, and overall healthier patient outcomes, i.e., a healing environment.  Similarly, in the outpatient setting, the use of Integrative Medicine modalities can significantly contribute to the continued health and well-being of the individuals utilizing these techniques by helping them focus on wellness and prevention activities.  Healing touch, spirituality, family support, and various types of integrative therapies ranging from massage to pets have been shown to exponentially improve the patient’s well being and general healthfulness.
[Read more…]

The Progress and Promise of ACOs

by

By Mike Cassidy, Esq.

Since Accountable Care Organizations (“ACO”) are one of the featured topics for the May edition of Hospital News, I thought it would be appropriate to revisit the progress and evaluate the promise of ACOs to date.

I last wrote on this topic in the December 2011 Thought Leader column, and indicated there had been little progress, at least with the federal ACO model, which is the Medicare Shared Savings Program as of that time.  I also cited a study done by Leavitt Partners in November 2011 entitled the “Growth and Dispersion of Accountable Care Organizations.”

The key findings of the Leavitt study stated there were 164 ACOs being developed, 99 by hospitals, 38 by physician groups and 28 by insurers.  Most of these commercial products were concentrated in higher income/higher population areas with the majority of the ACOs being concentrated in just eight states, the leader of which was California.

[Read more…]

Tucker Arensberg Strengthens Long Term Care Practice

by

Tucker Arensberg announces the hiring of Stacy Mikelonis, JD, MBA, MHA, NHA as an associate in the Health Care practice group.  “Ms. Mikelonis brings years of experience as a nursing home administrator to our practice,” said Michael Cassidy, head of the health care practice group.  “This allows us to serve, even better, our clients in the health care and long term care industries.”

Tom Peterson, Managing Shareholder, added “We have many attorneys across all practices who work with health care and long term care providers on everything from labor law to Health I.T.  Stacy’s experience as an executive in the long term care field gives us additional depth that will be beneficial to our clients.”

Stacy Mikelonis most recently was the Chief of Licensed Facilities, Clinical Services and Quality at the United Methodist Services for the Aging, Asbury Heights.  Stacy is a graduate of the Duquesne University School of Law, the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health and the Katz Graduate School of Business.

[Read more…]

How Public Health Experts Can Help Hospitals Meet the Community Health Needs Assessment Requirements of the Affordable Care Act

by

By George A. Huber, JD, MSIE, MSSM

The Affordable Care Act added section 501(r) to the United States Internal Revenue Code which requires each tax-exempt hospital to conduct community health needs assessments (CHNAs) every three years.  These assessments must take into account input from persons with a broad range of interests in the communities the hospitals serve including individuals with expertise in public health.  The assessments are to be the basis for each hospital’s planning for its community benefit program.

Some hospitals have already been doing variations of the CHNA requirement.  However, most hospitals are primarily concerned about having the right services in place to address individual patient treatment needs.  Most hospitals have been understandably cautions about venturing into the broad un-reimbursable field of public health and, specifically, community health.

Health care is only one of many determinants of the health of a population.  Other determinants include individual behavior, social factors, physical environment, and genetics as they all relate to morbidity, mortality, quality of life, and health disparities.  From many hospitals’ historical perspective, these have been fields better left to government and other community organizations to address.

[Read more…]

The National Significance of the Highmark and West Penn Allegheny Merger

by

James T. Parker

By James T. Parker

A health-care transformation is unfolding in Pittsburgh that has national implications for health care. Recently, Pittsburgh-based Highmark announced its purchase of West Penn Allegheny Health System (WPAHS), a five-hospital, health system that’s the second largest health system in the Pittsburgh area.

With this announcement, the two organizations have begun to create a preview for what the future of health care may look like.  In fact, the merger of these two organizations offers a glimpse into the challenges that await health-care organizations that take bold steps to reposition themselves into the future.

Others are better positioned to ascribe the true catalysts behind this acquisition.  Nonetheless, it’s entirely plausible to suggest that Highmark was driven to this acquisition out of a fear that UPMC was simply becoming too large a force in the Pittsburgh health-care market.  If that’s the case, Highmark’s move can be seen as a defensive counter-response.  Having said that, Highmark and West Penn Allegheny describe another motive for coming together, one that is more far-reaching and significant.  Together, they describe their desire to create an integrated health-care system that marries the financing and delivery of care.

[Read more…]