Perspectives on Health Reform
Current Mayo Clinic perspectives on health reform
January 22, 2010
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Keep Patient-Centered Reform Moving Forward
Reforming health care in America will not become easier with the passage of time. The status quo is not sustainable, and Mayo Clinic remains firmly committed to moving forward with patient‐centered reform.
We at Mayo Clinic encourage all stakeholders – government officials, patients, insurers, providers and employers – to work together to pass reforms that provide quality, affordable health care for all Americans.
A reminder of the current state of American health care:
- Over 46 million uninsured Americans;
- Skyrocketing costs – health care consumes about 16 percent of the gross domestic product;
- Uneven quality and safety of medical care, with about 100,000 people dying from medical errors each year;
- An increasing number of physicians closing their practices to Medicare and Medicaid patients because reimbursement doesn’t cover costs; and
- Medicare’s imminent collapse. In 2011 – next year – the first baby boomers will qualify for Medicare. This marks the beginning of a huge influx of Medicare beneficiaries and will put significant strain on the program’s already precarious financial position.
Over the past four years, the Mayo Clinic Health Policy Center has convened more than 2,000 stakeholders – including providers, academics, medical industry leaders, businesspeople, insurers, political leaders and patients – for a series of events to help develop consensus-driven principles for reform. Those recommendations include four cornerstones:
Create Value
Improve patient health outcomes and satisfaction with U.S. health care. Decrease medical errors, costs and waste.
Coordinate Care
Coordinate patient services across people, functions, activities, locations and time.
Reform the Payment System
Change the way providers are paid in order to improve health and minimize waste.
Provide Health Insurance for All
Provide guaranteed, portable health insurance for all individuals, giving them choice, control and peace of mind.
We believe that the government has an important role to play in accomplishing two of these cornerstones – reforming the payment system and providing insurance for all. Therefore, we believe there must be two core elements in any successful reform measure:
- Change the Medicare payment system to create incentives for doctors and hospitals to offer the highest quality care at the most reasonable cost, thus increasing the value of health care.
- Coordinate basic, private insurance offerings and provide sliding scale subsidies to enable all Americans to purchase health insurance.
Each major stakeholder plays a role in reform and must contribute something to the process – be it a patient making a commitment to a healthier lifestyle or a physician
investing in interoperable health information technology for sharing medical records. We remain hopeful that lawmakers will come together to support reform legislation aimed at achieving high quality, affordable care for all Americans.
This perspective is written by Jeffrey O. Korsmo, Executive Director, Mayo Clinic Health Policy Center; and Bruce Kelly, Director of Government Relations, Mayo Clinic.
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8 Responses to "Perspectives on Health Reform"
1 | Welcome to HealthCare REPAIR « Health Care Repair
November 6, 2009 at 10:22 AM
[...] Perspectives on Health Reform [...]
November 8, 2009 at 8:37 PM
It’s easy and self serving for the Mayo Clinic to endorse bundling since it owns both the hospital and the physicians. This situation is almost exclusive to large academic medical centers which could easily incorporate this concept into their business model and could disrupt and possibly destroy many practices. What do you propose to the 95% of doctors who are in private practice, particularly solo practicioners who would be left to negotiate with large hospitals?
November 9, 2009 at 12:37 PM
Mayo Clinic’s overall goal in advancing health care reform is to ensure the future of quality patient care. Currently, cost increases are out of control, patients as a whole aren’t getting any better and the system is not sustainable. Data show that integrated care tends to use fewer resources and get better patient outcomes, such as fewer medication errors, less unnecessary radiation and fewer surgeries and procedures. Mayo Clinic is supportive of the bundling payment provision because it encourages providers to work together and coordinate care. While you are correct in pointing out that Mayo Clinic is vertically integrated, owning both medical practices and hospitals, we support this provision because it promotes a care delivery model that is proven to be best for patients.
For doctors in private practice, these new payment methods will require some level of organizing. There are IPAs (independent practice associations) that have served this function in many parts of the country, often being a key source of revenue for providers. Another model worth exploring exists in Grand Junction, Colorado, a community recently highlighted in the media for its high value care, yet without the vertical integration.
Regardless of the organizational model, to the extent that private practitioners can deliver care for less than the bundle, they will get to keep the difference. If we can reduce the rate of cost increases, we all win — patients, providers, and the country.
December 2, 2009 at 7:37 PM
you don’t know what you’re talking about, ask me, and i’ll give you a lesson about health care
November 20, 2009 at 3:52 PM
This Health care bill or any part of it will desyroy America. We can not afford this bill.If this bill is so good for us then why did the house and senate write them and there families out of the bill. No one is saying were the extra doctors are going to come from to take care of all the extra people that will be added. Why is it in this bill to allow the government to come into your house and tell you how to care for your children. If you think it will not lead to them telling what to eat or if you can smoke or drink or drop you if you do or pay hugh costs you are way to nieve. If you take 500 billion dollares out of meicare how are our parents suppose to get care. Yea enough is enough and write call and e-mail your reps and tell them that you will vote them out if they pass this bill. David Amrine
November 21, 2009 at 6:43 AM
What Health Care Reform Means for You
A lot of angry, over-the-top rhetoric is muddying our discussion of health care reform. This topic dominates FAUX NEWS these days. “Killing off granny” isn’t in the reform package, Living Wills, Advance Directives, Palliative Care, & Hospice Care is.
Which by the way are pretty much STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURES NOW. I’ve had a living will for years and I’m asked about it every time I’m hospitalized. I’ve been under Palliative Care since my last hospital visit in February and I can assure you there have been no efforts to kill me. Sara Palin’s comments about going before a panel to obtain medical services for her children is nothing more than rhetoric.
I have taken the stand that the folks who planted the seeds to create and spreading these lies, fears, and rhetoric are the ones who stand to lose the most money when the health care reform bill is passed. A republican friend of mine from the ruby red, bible thumpping, republic of Oklahoma sent me a link to Conservatives for Patients’ Rights and urged me to join the group. I signed-up for their news letter to see what they were all about, then I did a little research to see WHO was behind the organization.
What they are about Source http://www.cprights.org
In March 2009, Richard L. Scott launched Conservatives for Patients’ Rights (CPR), an advocacy group dedicated to the free market principles of choice, competition, accountability and personal responsibility in health care.
Modeling the organization after his own efforts in the industry, the goal of CPR was simply to prevent further government encroachment on the rights of patients. Seeded with $5 million from Scott, the group produced a thirty minute documentary entitled Faces of Government-Run Health Care, which told the frustrating and tragic stories of Canadian and British patients who have languished under Canada’s Medicare and the UK’s National Health Service. To date, the group has aired numerous ads on national television and radio to help educate Americans about the direction of legislation in Congress.
Okay sounds good! Here is a good old boy who feels so strongly that the health care reform bill will kill you if it were to pass, he put up FIVE MILLION DOLLARS of his own hard earned cash to found this group in order to fight the passage of the bill. Since he’s a businessman he must be right. RIGHT?
Well let’s do a little research on Richard L. Scott
Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lynn_Scott
Well it seems Mr. Scott founded the Columbia Hospital Corporation in 1987. With Columbia HCA Chairman Thomas J. Frist, the brother of (R)Senator Bill Frist, the company merged Columbia with Hospital Corporation of America in 1989 to form Columbia/HCA. Ten years later, Scott was was ousted by the company’s board of directors in the midst of the nation’s biggest health care fraud scandal in which the company ultimately plead guilty and paid a record fine of $1.7 billion dollars.
Funny he didn’t mention this little tibit when he was guest on dozens of national television and radio programs including CNN’s Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, FAUX News’ Hannity, and radio’s Laura Ingraham Show, to name a few. What did this scumbag do next? Scott co-founded the Solantic Corporation, which operates walk-in medical care centers. He also owns Continental Structural Plastics, North America’s largest industrial composites molder. wanna guess what products are made at Continental Structural Plastics?
Unlike these scumbags I have provided my sources for your consideration and research.
The same folks who spent historical amounts of money to defeat meaningful health care reform during the Clinton administration are bring all of this rhetoric to us again. Turn off the TV and do some research, don’t let talking heads cheat you and your family.
To help clear things up, here’s a brief summary of President Obama’s plan, including how it will stop insurance company abuses and help you—even if you currently have a strong health benefits plan.
Health care reform will stop insurance company abuses.
Insurance companies won’t be able to refuse to pay a claim or give you coverage because of “pre-existing” conditions.
Your out-of-pocket expenses will be capped. No more going broke because of a serious illness or injury.
Insurance companies won’t be allowed to charge women higher rates than men or drop you if you get sick.
Insurance companies will have to cover your children until age 26 instead of dumping them at 19.
Health care reform will hold down rising costs.
A public health insurance option will force private insurers to compete and will lower costs for everyone.
By requiring companies to pay their fair share, we’ll stop them from dumping their health care costs on the rest of us.
Health reform means affordable care will be there for you, no matter what. If you lose your job, or your kid loses his. If you get sick. When you retire. Affordable health care will be there for you, no matter what. That means you and your family can’t fall through the cracks and won’t go broke because of health care bills.
For more information about how health care reform can help you and for answers to many of the common questions about President Obama’s plan, check out this new web resource from the White House. http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/
We are so close to real reform, but getting over the finish line will be a battle. We are up against giant insurance companies, a Republican Party that wants President Obama to fail and the corporate media like Fox and Rush Limbaugh.
The reality is that health care costs are spiraling out of control, and everyone in America deserves quality and affordable care. Health care reform simply can’t wait. We will all be better off with real reform.
Thanks for reading!
5 | Public option does nothing to improve access, quality or cost containment « Health Care Repair
December 2, 2009 at 4:22 PM
[...] Perspectives on Health Reform [...]
November 20, 2009 at 8:39 AM
I am interested in this type of information being aired on 60 minutes for example. I want the public to hear you discuss what you think is good about our current health care, bad, and how innovation in the future is going to flourish.
I want this dialogue to be between you and your piers addressed to the public.
I am not interested in these politicians framing the debate.
I want you to go over the heads of these folks.
They don’t have the doctor patient relationship as the most important aspect of health care.
Jim Peeke