Upcoming Seminars
Title: Risk-Adjusted Payment and Performance Assessment for Primary Care
Speaker: Randall P. Ellis, Ph.D. – BU Department of Economics
Date: February 28, 2012
Time: 4:00 – 5:30 pm
Place: School of Management, 595 Commonwealth Ave, Room 210
Abstract
We describe an alternative framework for paying primary care practices through risk-adjusted bundled capitation payments and risk-adjusted performance and bonus payments. Using MarketScan’s commercial claims and encounter data, we calibrate models of bundled payment to cover expected primary care activity levels (PCAL), explaining 67% of the variation in this outcome at the individual level and 72% of the practice‐level variation. We also predict 9 patient outcomes for performance assessment and explain 17% to 86% of practice‐level variation. We demonstrate that the model works well for diverse payers, plan types, ages, and physician specialties. We also discuss implementation of the model in one health plan.
Professor Ellis teaches in the Department of Economics at Boston University, and currently serves as the President of the American Society of Health Economists and an associate editor of the Journal of Health Economics. He co-founded DxCG, Inc. (now Verisk Health, Inc.), a healthcare information and consulting firm. He sold all interests in the company in 2004. Dr. Ellis has led numerous research projects funded by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and others that have developed the Diagnostic Cost Group (DCG) model. In 2000 and 2004, CMS implemented DCG models to pay Medicare Advantage health plans. This body of work received the AcademyHealth 2008 Health Services Research Impact Award. Dr. Ellis has written and coauthored over 100 articles, reports and papers on diverse health topics including: risk adjustment, provider response to the reimbursement system, optimal insurance, health plan competition, the economics of mental health, health demand modeling in developing countries, and the cost-effectiveness of cancer screening. His current research focuses on primary care payment and is funded by grants from the Australian Research Council and The Commonwealth Fund.
Title: The Role of Law in the Epidemic of Harmful Side Effects from Prescription Drugs: The Risk Proliferation Syndrome
Speaker: Donald Light
Date: Monday, April 23, 2012
Time: 3:00 – 4:00pm
Place: B.U. School of Law, Barristers Hall, 765 Commonwealth Avenue, First Floor
Prescription drugs are one of the most beneficial parts of modern medicine. Yet they have become the major iatrogenic source of illness and death. This presentation will explain the Risk Proliferation Syndrome that centers around legal and regulatory practices harmful to society, science, medicine, and patients.
Donald Light has been the Lokey Visiting Professor at Stanford University and is a professor of comparative health care at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. A founding fellow of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, he has received the William Foote Whyte distinguished career award for applied sociology and is the editor of The Risks of Prescription Drugs (Columbia 2010).
Mission
The Boston University Health Policy Institute (HPI) brings together scholars and health professionals from across the University and affiliated institutions to engage in research and evaluation activities to illuminate our understanding of health policy issues, and to develop and analyze strategic policy options for improving health care. HPI conducts research in four core areas of interest:
1) Strategies for improving healthcare quality, access, and affordability;
2) Cross-national comparisons of health care systems;
3) Tools for healthcare informatics and information systems; and
4) Organizational transformation in health care.
Based within the School of Management, the Institute also houses the national program office of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholars in Health Policy Research Program, and has links to the School of Medicine and School of Public Health.
History
The HPI was founded in 1975 under the direction of Richard H. Egdahl, M.D. For much of its first three decades, the Institute conducted research studies in the areas of hospital payment, health technology, and resource decision making, and functioned as a laboratory for developing and testing innovative solutions to health system problems. During the 1990s, the Institute hosted the Health Care Entrepreneurship Program (HCEP), also under the direction of Dr. Egdahl, and served as an incubator for new start-ups and product development in medicine and health.
In 2003, Alan B. Cohen, Sc.D., joined the Institute as executive director and the primary research focus shifted to the evaluation of strategies for improving healthcare quality, access, and affordability. Other areas of interest included: cross-national comparisons of health care systems; strategies for increasing human capital in health policy and quality improvement; and the evaluation of policies governing the adoption and regulation of medical technology.
In 2010, the HPI became a unit of the School of Management and its mission and core objectives were redefined and refocused to include the four areas listed above. This strategic expansion of core activities was motivated by the growing importance of these areas to health policy in the U.S. and other countries, and by the rich resources relevant to each area that exist across Boston University. With support from the Office of the Provost, the HPI seeks to connect faculty members from across the University to conduct collaborative, interdisciplinary research. Senior Fellows are drawn from the School of Management, the School of Medicine, the School of Public Health, the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Engineering, and the School of Law, as well as from Boston Medical Center.
Contact
Boston University Health Policy Institute
53 Bay State Road
Boston, MA 02215
Phone: (617) 353-4520
Fax: (617) 353-6393
Email: buhpi@bu.edu