What holds for health care costs down in Grand Junction, Colorado?

Do you remember that the The New Yorker article about how the health care costs can vary widely among different areas of the country? History notes favourably Grand Junction, Colorado, saying that the community is "one of lowest cost the country markets"but"However, has some of the highest scores of quality of care for Medicare."

Since then, as the writing of two researchers on a piece of perspective which had just been published online in the New England Journal of medicine, "many reporters have made the pilgrimage to this Mecca of low-cost, trying to explain why health there is cheaper than in other places in the United States."

Obviously, some things about the community, such as "nature of the small town" and "relatively homogeneous racial makeup," not can only be taken by other areas looking for their own costs of health, Thomas Bodenheimer, of the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine of excellence in primary care and David West, Center and hold a hospitalist in the Hospital St. Mary of Grand Junction write.

But, they write, "seven interrelated functions" that can help explain the lower costs of Grand Junction could more easily be transferido.Aqu? is identified:

Leadership community primary care: family physicians most abundant in Grand Junction than elsewhere, to control medical practice Association and médico-ejecuci?n Rocky Mountain counties health, a provider of beneficios.Ellos plans "fostering a culture of incentives for cost control and transparency of costs", write the authors.

A shared risk-based payment system:The Rocky Mountains and the medical fees of doctors, and then 15% retention Association health plans give them back if the costs of remain low for the year and doctors that unusually high rack costs are identified.

As for private and public insurance reimbursement: since doctors are paid the same for the treatment of Medicaid patients to other patients, who publicly insured patients have access to primary health care and private specialty and were less likely to rely on the ER.

Well organized and tiered services: St Mary is only tertiary care hospital in the region and is fed by smaller hospitals "not providing expensive Interventional Services", such as cardiac procedures.

Limits on supply of expensive resources:St. Mary "has maintained its number of beds and expensive equipment to reasonable levels."

Payment documents of primary care for hospital of visita:This enhances the continuity of care, and the authors say, helps reduce the possibility of unnecessary hospital readmissions.

Robust care, end of his vida:Non-profit Hospice area also provides palliative care, doctors learn to speak instructions in advance with the patients and the public learns about the options at the end of his life.

"These features could be replicated in other markets, but generally not without political battles," they write.

Are you agree?