Weekly Roundup: Health care news and notes

October 24, 2014 · NCQA

Every Friday NCQA gives a rundown of some of the health care news stories from the past week. Here are some of our picks for this week:

• NCQA Board Member Robert Margolis urges Congress to make integrated care central to the nation’s patient experience [Roll Call]
• At home with the specialist: Oncologists and other specialists launching Patient Centered Medical Homes [Modern Healthcare]
• 2014 State of Health Care Quality coverage from [Behavioral Healthcare]
• NAMD also critiqued the IG’s recent report on widely varying network standards, saying they are just one of many tools for ensuring access. [CQ]
• CMS is developing new ACO rules that Sean Cavanaugh says builds on provider feedback and may address incentives, attribution and capacity building issues. [CQ]
• Healthgrades.com updated physician comparison website bases its rankings on 500M claims, patient reviews and surveys, and complication rates and hospitals where they practice. [healthgrades]
• 47% of the uninsured know about Marketplace subsidies and only 10% know when open enrollment begins. Only 8% of registered voters say ACA is their most important election issue. [Kaiser Family Foundation]
• Affordability remains uninsured people’s top concern, but 78% of Marketplace enrollees like their coverage and 59% say premiums are affordable.  [Robert Wood Johnson Fondation]
• The AMA asked CMS to harmonize requirements for avoiding penalties in Medicare’s overlapping physician incentive programs and back off its plan to raise total penalties to more than 10%. [CQ]
• Converting to for-profit status improves hospital finances without harming quality, mortality rates or care for poor or minority patients. [JAMA]
• Another study found hospital ownership of physician groups increased care costs by 10-20%. [JAMA]
• Castlight’s price transparency platform showing out-of-pocket costs lowered total claims payments, especially for advanced imaging. [JAMA]
• PCMH recognition-level based payments do not sufficiently change FFS incentives. [JAMA]
• All but one of 8 GOP governors who opposed Medicaid expansion are in close reelection races, while most who did expand appear safe. [New Republic]
• After pulling tobacco from its own store shelves, CVS’s PBM will charge extra copays to patients who fill prescriptions at stores selling tobacco. [The Washington Post]