Big changes are ahead for Medicare, the largest payer in the U.S. health-care system. By 2018, Medicare aims to tie at least half of all payments to the quality or value of care received, not the quantity of services rendered. Many critics of the existing system claim that it incentivizes doctors to do more procedures, which do not in the end improve health.
A panel of experts will discuss changes in how we pay for care, and whether payment reforms can improve quality while lowering costs, in a free public webinar this Thursday at 10 AM Pacific time. Heading the panel is Stanford's Arnold Milstein, MD, MPH, director of the Clinical Excellence Research Center. That center focuses on new methods of health-care delivery that substantially reduce health spending while improving outcomes.
More details, including the link to register, can be found on the Reporting on Health website. The webinar is free and made possible by the National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation.
Previously: Medicare reforms cut costs and improve patient care, Experts discuss high costs of healthcare and what it will take to improve the system, Analysis: the Supreme Court upholds the health reform act (really) and Views on costs and reform from the "dean of American health economists" and New Stanford center to address inefficient health care delivery
