AHIP Presents Healthcare Plan to Improve Safety, Reduce Costs
America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) put forth a new proposal to provide healthcare coverage for all Americans. Key factors integrated into that work included the means to improve the overall safety of patient care and reduce the levels of healthcare spending.
PricewaterhouseCoopers recently assessed the AHIP plan and noted that the savings suggested are within reach. Perhaps equally important are the potential savings, in the neighborhood of $145 billion, if the plans are implemented as described.
The AHIP proposal calls for a public-private and federal-state partnership to address the current healthcare crisis. The effort encompasses five main principles.
The first principle calls for transparency with respect to treatment decision-making. Providing clinicians and patients with access to a broad data set that allows comparison of both the costs and effectiveness of different treatment options will allow decisions to be made with respect to quality of outcomes, considering safety and cost.
The importance of an interconnected healthcare system is delineated in the second principle. Such a system can reduce the likelihood of errors. This principle calls for universal adoption of electronic and personal health records, as well as e-prescribing.
AHIP also notes that the existing medical liability system disrupts the practice of healthcare for all clinicians. To address such, the third principle calls for a revision of the current system to support a dispute resolution process that minimizes frivolous lawsuits and simultaneously supports the practice of evidence-based medicine.
In pursuit of medicine based on established guidelines, the AHIP plan calls for reimbursement patterns that reward the quality of care delivered, along with value and effectiveness. In addition, the fourth principle calls for a system that provides customers with information related to the value of healthcare.
The final system principle calls for a revision to the focus of healthcare, calling for a system that considers prevention as paramount and rewards chronic care management. This requires enhancements to prevention programming and coordination of care.
June 2, 2008 Related topics: Trends, Partnerships & Consortia, Quality, Safety, Errors, Cost savings