Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Cleveland Clinic's First Heavy Play In Insurance Field Through Partnership With Oscar Health Is Vastly Exceeding Expectations
Modern Healthcare: Cleveland Clinic-Oscar Health Pairing Is Exceeding Hopes
Oscar Health and Cleveland Clinic are looking to capitalize on the initial success of their co-branded insurance product as they enter into their second year as partners. The partnership, which marked the clinic's first heavy play in the insurance business, vastly exceeded expectations in the first year, securing what they estimate to be a 15% share of the individual market in the 2018 open enrollment season. (Coutré, 11/19)
Modern Healthcare: Ascension's Outpatient Transformation Comes At A Cost
As Ascension reinvents itself as a system centered around paying for value and providing outpatient—rather than inpatient—care, the evolution is having anticipated, but not exactly welcome effects on its operating results. Emphasizing outpatient care will undoubtedly put a dent in a health system's volumes, and St. Louis-based Ascension is already starting to see that, eight months after announcing its restructuring away from revolving around hospitals and instead focusing on outpatient care and telemedicine. (Bannow, 11/19)
Modern Healthcare: Health Data Interoperability Tool Lets Most Hospitals Share Records
The CommonWell Health Alliance and the Carequality framework have solidified their connection, boosting interoperability among members and allowing providers to more easily exchange data with each other even if they're on different electronic health record systems. CommonWell's new connection to the Carequality framework, which on Friday becomes available to all the groups' participants, promotes interoperability by linking the country's biggest EHR vendors, including Epic Systems Corp., Cerner, Athenahealth, Allscripts, and others. Previously, the connection was available on a limited basis. (Arndt, 11/16)
Modern Healthcare: ECRI Institute Launches Site To Replace Shuttered National Guideline Clearinghouse
Clinicians once again have free access to medical practice guidelines four months after the federal government closed a website that housed the information. The not-for-profit ECRI Institute on Monday launched the ECRI Guidelines Trust. The website is meant to replace the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's National Guideline Clearinghouse that shut down July 17 due to budget cuts. HHS said it cost $1.2 million in 2017 to maintain the website, which ECRI essentially developed and had operated since 1998 for AHRQ. (Johnson, 11/19)
