Right now, Medicare recipients in certain areas are going to be the first to test out a new federal program that is designed to improve the quality of care that patients who use Medicare receive. The same program is also supposed to lower the costs of care through Medicare.
Starting in January of 2012, around 17,000 Medicare patients in the San Francisco Bay Area in California will be involved in a test program that is designed to improve the quality of Medicare, while at the same time, reducing the costs. Specifically, this group of patients are members of San Francisco’s Brown & Toland Physicians group.
This is going to be a five year program, and the hope is that it will save up to $1.1 billion in Medicare costs. The program is actually something that is outlined in the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act. The basic idea is to focus care within “accountable care organizations”, which would be made up of an intentional cooperation between physician groups, hospitals, and other health care providers.
The purpose is to create a system that involves coordinated care for patients. There is hope that this new system would place an emphasis on preventative procedures. It is supposed to cut down, and eliminate, unnecessary and duplicative procedures that many Medicare recipients are receiving today. It is also supposed to streamline the costs involved in the Medicare program.
Right now, Medicare takes up a huge portion of the states’ budgets. At the time that I am writing this blog, the House of Representatives has failed to come to an agreement regarding what to do about the upcoming deadlines involving Medicare. If nothing changes, then doctors and hospitals can expect to see a 27% cut to the reimbursements they receive after treating Medicare patients. It is easy to see why there is an interest in finding ways to streamline the care, and lower the cost, of Medicare.
One of the reasons why they want to start the test of what could be the new Medicare program right now is to give doctors a chance to try it out. It gives the doctors a way to work directly with Medicare, and it also shows the benefits of having a coordinated system. It is also a good way to gather evidence that shows that the new Medicare really would lower costs, and improve care.
Image by Brian Kennish on Flickr