(Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama is enlisting private companies into his drive to change the way the country pays its medical bills, including insurers Anthem Inc. and Cigna Inc. and casino chain Caesars Entertainment Corp.
Obama and his health secretary, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, announced a partnership with private companies and medical trade associations to develop replacements for the nation's predominant method of paying for health care, called fee-for-service. Today, doctors and hospitals are paid largely based on the volume of services they provide, without regard to their quality or whether patients get better, a system that is blamed for waste and overspending on health care.
Burwell and Obama have said they want half of Medicare's $362 billion in payments for health-care services to be linked to measurements of how well patients are cared for by 2018. In some cases doctors and hospitals would be at risk of lower payments if their care is substandard.
Complete your profile to continue reading and get FREE access to BenefitsPRO, part of your ALM digital membership.
Your access to unlimited BenefitsPRO content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Critical BenefitsPRO information including cutting edge post-reform success strategies, access to educational webcasts and videos, resources from industry leaders, and informative Newsletters.
- Exclusive discounts on ALM, BenefitsPRO magazine and BenefitsPRO.com events
- Access to other award-winning ALM websites including ThinkAdvisor.com and Law.com
Already have an account? Sign In
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
