About the Project | White Papers | News & Commentary | Resources
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About HFMA’s Healthcare Payment Reform Project
HFMA recognizes that changing the current healthcare payment system is key to achieving the nation’s overall health goals of wellness, high-quality care, access to care, and a financially stable health system.
Since September 2007, HFMA has led a payment reform thought leadership initiative involving a cross-section of system stakeholders. The initiaitve has sought to identify the principles that should guide changes to the current system and the compentencies that providers will need to succeed under reform. Products of this initiative include the two white papers featured below.
HFMA will continue to help its members and others involved in healthcare finance understand and prepare for efforts to build a sustainable and effective healthcare system.
White Papers
Healthcare Payment Reform: Accelerating Success (February 2010)
This white paper identifies strategies that providers can use to accelerate development of the key competencies that will be needed to succeed under payment reform: integration, risk management, pricing, and competencies related to quality, cost, and value.
Healthcare Payment Reform: A Call to Action (June 2009)
Federal payment reform appears poised to emerge within the coming year, and once it does, providers may need to change quickly. This white paper identifies competencies in three key areas that providers can begin to build today to succeed under payment reform.
Healthcare Payment Reform: From Principles to Action (Sept. 2008)
Our current payment system works against the actions needed to improve health care. This paper outlines the principles, actions, and collaborative approach among all stakeholders that is needed to transform the payment system.
News & Commentary
Health Reform: Sustaining a Culture of Success
In this commentary, Kevin Nolan identifies actions that healthcare organizations, payers, and government actors should take regardless of how the health reform pendulum swings.
Senate Finance Committee Releases Reform Bill
Read this HFMA News story, with a link to the draft legislation.
Vetting the Health Care Rhetoric
This article from Congressional Quarterly sorts through various claims on proposed health reform legislation, identifying true, false, and misleading assertions. (Note: Not an HFMA publication; opens in a new window.)
Health Reform: A Message to HFMA Members (August 2009)
HFMA President and CEO Richard L. Clarke discusses the necessity and challenges of reform.
Incremental Healthcare Reform Can Work
In this opinion piece, HFMA member Olakunle Olaniyan and a colleague argue for an incremental approach to reform in lieu of a rapid overhaul.
The Realities of Healthcare Costs
HFMA member Gregory Burfitt defines eight realities of healthcare costs in this opinion piece for HFMA Views.
HFMA Comments on Attributes of Tax-Exempt Healthcare Providers
In this June 18, 2009, comment letter to Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, HFMA encourages moving away from a narrow focus on charity care in discussions of not-for-profit hospitals’ tax-exempt status.
Healthcare Reform: A Moral Imperative, an Economic Necessity
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D.-Mont.) outlines both social and economic arguments in favor of reform.
Healthcare Reform: It Can Be Done
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the Senate Finance Committee’s ranking member, identifies four key principles for healthcare reform.
Strange Bedfellows
Richard L. Clarke, DHA, FHFMA, President and CEO of HFMA, considers the factors behind an apparent alignment of key healthcare stakeholders on the need for reform.
Resources
An Overview of Proposed Healthcare Reforms Affecting Hospitals
This downloadable presentation summarizes recent healthcare payment reform proposals and examines their potential impact on acute care hospitals. Updated Dec. 28, 2009.
House-Senate Comparison of Key Health Reform Bill Provisions
This summary, prepared by Tri-Committee House of Representatives staff, highlights differences that will need to be resolved as the House and Senate reconcile their versions of health reform legislation. (Note: this document, posted on the House Energy & Commerce Committee site, will open in a new window.)
Summary of House Healthcare Reform Bill
This document provides a section-by-section summary of the House of Representatives’ Affordable Health Care for America Act. (Note: this document, posted on the House Energy & Commerce Committee site, will open in a new window.)
Impact of a Government-Run Option on Hospital Revenue
Use this tool to model the impact of a government-run option in the health insurance market on your hospital's revenues. Results are based on assumptions by the Commonwealth Fund and the Lewin Group, as well as scenarios that you can create.
Are You Ready for Value-Driven Health Care?
Value-focused reforms to today’s payment system are sure to be a major component of healthcare reform, and providers need to be prepared. This HFMA educational report describes how participants in the 2009 HFMA CFO Summit are using new pricing structures, physician alignment strategies, and healthcare IT to enhance the value and quality of care.