News in brief - Aug. 1, 2011

Harvard study finds success with global payment model

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts is claiming success with its global payment model, known as the Alternative Quality Contract, based on a study of claims data published July 13 in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Researchers at the Harvard Medical School Dept. of Health Care Policy in Boston examined three years of claims data, including the first year of claims data for the AQC .

The authors found "modest" cost savings attributable to the payment structure, mostly due to physicians referring patients to less expensive specialists.

The amount the insurer actually spent did not go down, however, because it paid physicians bonuses based on clinical quality outcomes.

The quality of care was better under the global payment arrangement, as measured by the number of Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set measure thresholds that were achieved. Chronic care management was better by about 2.6 percentage points for adults, and pediatric care was better by about 0.7 of a percentage point. There was no significant improvement in preventive care for adults.

The full study is available online (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21751900).

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Take Care Health offers real-time information online

Walgreens' Take Care Health has begun offering patients real-time information on waiting times at its in-store clinics.

Patients can chose a clinic location on the drugstore chain's web page (www.takecarehealth.com). Real-time information on wait times is displayed as short, medium or long, and alternative clinic sites in an area are listed with their wait times.

The chain also will display a cost menu on its website, as well as patient satisfaction and quality of care scores, based on Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set guidelines for each location.

Take Care Health operates more than 340 clinics in Walgreens stores across the U.S.

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