Cambridge Management Group on Oct. 30 listened to a session run by Harvard Business Healthcare Alumni titled “The State of the Healthcare Regulatory Environment”.
The participants agreed that the Feds would continue to press the move to payment for value from payment for service, whichever party wins the next presidential election. There’s no alternative.
A couple of things stuck out.
One was from former CMS Administrator Leslie Norwalk, who suggested that in federal election years the CMS is less likely to press providers hard on oversight and reform.
The other was from James Boiani, a lawyer in the Healthcare & Life Science Practice of Epstein Becker & Green, who implied that a Republican administration would tend to be more flexible and pro-business in approving medically related innovation.
Everyone agreed that, regardless of administration, the push to cut costs through such methods as bundling (starting with fairly clear and predictable procedures such as joint replacements) and risk contracts will continue. They also agreed that with the aging of the population, much more emphasis will be put on cost-saving ways to handle the chronically ill and on the 10 percent of patients who take up 60 percent of the Medicare costs.
