AJMC® in the Press, March 23, 2018

In the March issue of The American Journal of Managed Care^® (AJMC^®), the study “Improving Quality of Care in Oncology Through Healthcare Reform” gave an overview of alternative payment models (APMs) and the leading organizations involved with linking quality improvement initiatives and payment reform. The study was mentioned in a Journal of Clinical Pathways article on quality initiatives and healthcare reimbursement being crucial to APMs' long-term success.

The study “Chronic Pain as a Driver of Cost in ACO Arrangements,” published in the March issue of The American Journal of Accountable Care^®, was mentioned in the Leavitt Partners’ Weekly News Summary. The study concluded that as health systems transition to population health strategies that hold them accountable for the total cost of care, they will need to take a thorough look at their populations to understand where they can improve care and hopefully reduce cost.

National Pharmaceutical Council (NPC)’s Monday CER Daily Newsfeed included AJMC^®'s coverage of University of Michigan’s Center for Value-Based Insurance Design (V-BID) Summit: “How Public Payers Are Adopting VBID Principles Despite Constraints” covered payer perspectives on how they have seen value-based principles take hold in their plans and their predictions for the future, and “The Challenge of Addressing Low-Value Care Once It’s Identified” reported on a panel discussing low-value care, unnecessary services, and what can be done to address overuse in healthcare. The Newsfeed also included an AJMC^® video interview with Jason Harris, associate director of policy and programs at National Health Council. During the interview, Harris said there needs to be more education around what real-world evidence is.

Tuesday’s CER Daily Newsfeed included an AJMC^® interview of Robert Dubois, MD, PhD, chief science officer and executive vice president of NPC. In the interview, Dubois discussed NPC’s initiative Going Below the Surface and how it will address the question of how well we spend when it comes to healthcare.

An article in Med Device Online about the importance of medication adherence and the ramifications of nonadherence mentioned an AJMC^® newsroom story. The article, “Medication Adherence Is a Problem, but Not the Only Problem,” reported on a study that found medication nonadherence represents only a small fraction of medication-related problems experienced by patients and that medication-related problems such as “dose too low” and “needs additional drug therapy” were the most common.