In This Week’s Issue:
1. LAN Updates: Deadline TODAY to Submit Intent to Present at October Summit; Webinar Tomorrow, see details below.
2. CMS Announces Value-Based Insurance Design Model in Medicare Advantage Plans, click here to view the press release.
3. FDA And Pharmaceutical Companies Welcome Patient Voices To New Drug Development, click here to view the article.
4. AHRQ: How Clinical Registries Advance Personalized Medicine, click here to view the article.
5. Videos: Dr. Joe V. Selby Considers Unanswered Questions of Approved Treatments; Dr. Robert Dubois Discusses Clinical Pathways, click here and here to view the videos.
1. LAN Updates: Deadline TODAY to Submit Intent to Present at October Summit; Webinar Tomorrow, see details below.
2. CMS Announces Value-Based Insurance Design Model in Medicare Advantage Plans, click here to view the press release.
3. FDA And Pharmaceutical Companies Welcome Patient Voices To New Drug Development, click here to view the article.
4. AHRQ: How Clinical Registries Advance Personalized Medicine, click here to view the article.
5. Videos: Dr. Joe V. Selby Considers Unanswered Questions of Approved Treatments; Dr. Robert Dubois Discusses Clinical Pathways, click here and here to view the videos.
1. LAN Updates: Deadline TODAY to Submit Intent to Present at October Summit; Webinar Tomorrow
On October 26, 2015 in Arlington, VA, the Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network (LAN) Guiding Committee will hold a webinar to present updates from the APM Framework and Progress Tracking Work Group, and engage with fellow APM innovators. If you are interested in presenting at the summit, a Statement of Intent must be submitted today to [email protected]. Applications should include a short paragraph describing the intended subject of your presentation. Priority will be given to new ideas, techniques, and processes that provide LAN participants, ranging from beginners to those at different stages of implementation, with knowledge and tools they can apply to support their own organization’s transition to APMs. Presentations must be non-commercial. The official call for abstracts will be due September 15, 2015.
Additionally, LAN will hold a webinar, “LAN Learnings in September: A Virtual ACO Model,” tomorrow (September 9) from 3:00 - 4:30 PM ET. According to a release, “since our last webinar, the Guiding Committee had a conference call to review progress and developments for each of the LAN’s three work groups. In other news, the APM Framework and Progress Tracking Work Group held its first in-person meeting on Thursday, August 27, to develop recommendations for categorizing APMs. LAN Guiding Committee Co-Chair Mark Smith will share updates on these activities during this webinar…. You will also learn how a large insurer, Blue Shield of California; a physician group, Hill Physicians Medical Group; and a hospital system, Dignity Health, are collaborating on a virtual Accountable Care Organization (ACO) model for approximately 41,000 employees who receive coverage through the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS). These organizations share information and coordinate care to improve quality, cost, and service. Disease management, pharmacy, improved communication, and palliative care all play a role in this model. Hear perspectives from Kristen Miranda, Senior Vice President, Strategic Partnerships and Innovation of Blue Shield of California, Rosaleen Derington, Chief Medical Services Officer of Hill Physicians Medical Group, and Cheri Galt, Director, Managed Care of Dignity Health.” Click here to register for the webinar.
2. CMS Announces Value-Based Insurance Design Model in Medicare Advantage Plans
According to a press release, “the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced [last week] the Medicare Advantage Value-Based Insurance Design Model, which will test the hypothesis that giving Medicare Advantage plans flexibility to offer targeted extra supplemental benefits or reduced cost sharing to enrollees who have specified chronic conditions can lead to higher-quality and more cost-efficient care, helping health plans and consumers have the tools they need to improve costs and spend dollars more wisely.” Click here to view the press release.
As The Pink Sheet Daily reported, “value-based insurance design increasingly has been used in the commercial market but generally has not been incorporated into the Medicare Advantage program because of federal regulations, including a uniformity requirement that precludes varying benefit design within a plan based on health status or other enrollee characteristics. CMS will overcome that obstacle by allowing plans to seek waivers allowing them to restructure benefits within certain parameters.” Click here to view the article (subscription only).
3. FDA And Pharmaceutical Companies Welcome Patient Voices To New Drug Development
In an article for International Business Times, Amy Nordrum reported, “patients have more say than ever in the way drugs are developed in the U.S. Pharmaceutical companies and the government now welcome patients’ thoughts on their diseases, symptoms and treatment options at virtually every stage of the process. Many stakeholders from health policy experts to physicians to patients’ groups are broadly in support of this shift. But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration isn’t quite sure how to handle the resulting flood of information, anecdotes and opinions that comes from a patient-centered focus. As a result, there is ambiguity about if and how patients’ feedback will be incorporated into the process by which new medicines progress from an idea in a lab to a finished product on the shelf… Dr. Anne Beal, who was hired to fill the newly created position of chief patient officer for Sanofi in 2014, would love to see the agency offer a list of best practices on how to incorporate patient-focused outcomes into clinical research. She formerly served as deputy director and chief of patient engagement at the nonprofit Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, and says the industry is actively looking for opportunities to develop and share this research.” Click here to view the article.
4. AHRQ: How Clinical Registries Advance Personalized Medicine
As reported in Fierce Health IT last week, “AHRQ has been working to better link electronic health records with administrative claims data, pharmacy data and diagnostic data, and to collect patient-specific information such as medication side effects, pain after surgery, disease symptoms and experience of care, to provide doctors with more insight. With this information, the agency is pushing for use of enhanced clinical registries to create learning healthcare systems.” Click here to view the article.
5. Videos: Dr. Joe V. Selby Considers Unanswered Questions of Approved Treatments; Dr. Robert Dubois Discusses Clinical Pathways
In a video posted by The American Journal of Managed Care, PCORI’s Executive Director Joe Selby explains that “when treatments get in the marketplace and are being recommended and used, there are actually still a lot of questions that can only be answered by researching real-world data. And in a second video, Dr. Robert Dubois outlines the creation and utilization of clinical pathways. Click here and here to view the videos.
On October 26, 2015 in Arlington, VA, the Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network (LAN) Guiding Committee will hold a webinar to present updates from the APM Framework and Progress Tracking Work Group, and engage with fellow APM innovators. If you are interested in presenting at the summit, a Statement of Intent must be submitted today to [email protected]. Applications should include a short paragraph describing the intended subject of your presentation. Priority will be given to new ideas, techniques, and processes that provide LAN participants, ranging from beginners to those at different stages of implementation, with knowledge and tools they can apply to support their own organization’s transition to APMs. Presentations must be non-commercial. The official call for abstracts will be due September 15, 2015.
Additionally, LAN will hold a webinar, “LAN Learnings in September: A Virtual ACO Model,” tomorrow (September 9) from 3:00 - 4:30 PM ET. According to a release, “since our last webinar, the Guiding Committee had a conference call to review progress and developments for each of the LAN’s three work groups. In other news, the APM Framework and Progress Tracking Work Group held its first in-person meeting on Thursday, August 27, to develop recommendations for categorizing APMs. LAN Guiding Committee Co-Chair Mark Smith will share updates on these activities during this webinar…. You will also learn how a large insurer, Blue Shield of California; a physician group, Hill Physicians Medical Group; and a hospital system, Dignity Health, are collaborating on a virtual Accountable Care Organization (ACO) model for approximately 41,000 employees who receive coverage through the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS). These organizations share information and coordinate care to improve quality, cost, and service. Disease management, pharmacy, improved communication, and palliative care all play a role in this model. Hear perspectives from Kristen Miranda, Senior Vice President, Strategic Partnerships and Innovation of Blue Shield of California, Rosaleen Derington, Chief Medical Services Officer of Hill Physicians Medical Group, and Cheri Galt, Director, Managed Care of Dignity Health.” Click here to register for the webinar.
2. CMS Announces Value-Based Insurance Design Model in Medicare Advantage Plans
According to a press release, “the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced [last week] the Medicare Advantage Value-Based Insurance Design Model, which will test the hypothesis that giving Medicare Advantage plans flexibility to offer targeted extra supplemental benefits or reduced cost sharing to enrollees who have specified chronic conditions can lead to higher-quality and more cost-efficient care, helping health plans and consumers have the tools they need to improve costs and spend dollars more wisely.” Click here to view the press release.
As The Pink Sheet Daily reported, “value-based insurance design increasingly has been used in the commercial market but generally has not been incorporated into the Medicare Advantage program because of federal regulations, including a uniformity requirement that precludes varying benefit design within a plan based on health status or other enrollee characteristics. CMS will overcome that obstacle by allowing plans to seek waivers allowing them to restructure benefits within certain parameters.” Click here to view the article (subscription only).
3. FDA And Pharmaceutical Companies Welcome Patient Voices To New Drug Development
In an article for International Business Times, Amy Nordrum reported, “patients have more say than ever in the way drugs are developed in the U.S. Pharmaceutical companies and the government now welcome patients’ thoughts on their diseases, symptoms and treatment options at virtually every stage of the process. Many stakeholders from health policy experts to physicians to patients’ groups are broadly in support of this shift. But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration isn’t quite sure how to handle the resulting flood of information, anecdotes and opinions that comes from a patient-centered focus. As a result, there is ambiguity about if and how patients’ feedback will be incorporated into the process by which new medicines progress from an idea in a lab to a finished product on the shelf… Dr. Anne Beal, who was hired to fill the newly created position of chief patient officer for Sanofi in 2014, would love to see the agency offer a list of best practices on how to incorporate patient-focused outcomes into clinical research. She formerly served as deputy director and chief of patient engagement at the nonprofit Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, and says the industry is actively looking for opportunities to develop and share this research.” Click here to view the article.
4. AHRQ: How Clinical Registries Advance Personalized Medicine
As reported in Fierce Health IT last week, “AHRQ has been working to better link electronic health records with administrative claims data, pharmacy data and diagnostic data, and to collect patient-specific information such as medication side effects, pain after surgery, disease symptoms and experience of care, to provide doctors with more insight. With this information, the agency is pushing for use of enhanced clinical registries to create learning healthcare systems.” Click here to view the article.
5. Videos: Dr. Joe V. Selby Considers Unanswered Questions of Approved Treatments; Dr. Robert Dubois Discusses Clinical Pathways
In a video posted by The American Journal of Managed Care, PCORI’s Executive Director Joe Selby explains that “when treatments get in the marketplace and are being recommended and used, there are actually still a lot of questions that can only be answered by researching real-world data. And in a second video, Dr. Robert Dubois outlines the creation and utilization of clinical pathways. Click here and here to view the videos.
