What's needed next: Transparency in outcomes, and other letters

In the April 14 issue, Merrill Goozner’s editorial, noting the potential value of the release by the CMS of individual physician payments, is immediately followed by a guest editorial from Michael Porter and Dr. Thomas Lee, who advocate the consolidation of some services into centers of excellence as a pathway to better outcomes and value. Both columns draw attention to important developments on the journey to higher-value healthcare. What’s needed next is transparency in outcomes—risk-adjusted, of course—to stimulate consolidation of services around the nuclei of clinical excellence. Perhaps Modern Healthcare can use its pages to champion that cause.

Dan Krupka

Twin Peaks GroupLexington, Mass.

I look forward to receiving Modern Healthcare magazine. However, I was surprised when I read the article on AHIMA in the April 14 issue. It refers to AHIMA as an “association for medical-record professionals.” We are the American Health Information Management Association. We changed our title over 20 years ago. We do more than medical records—we manage information, code charts for reimbursement, perform data analytics, manage clinical documentation, provide ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS training, and are privacy and security officers, just to name a few of our responsibilities.

RoseAnn Webb

AHIMA memberCorporate director, health information management and privacy officerPromise HealthcareBoca Raton, Fla.

Regarding the story “High drug prices skewing payouts to some physicians”, those reimbursements can’t be explained in many cases. Even if every drug were flowing through one doctor’s codes, which should not happen, when we look up the size of a practice we find the other doctors were also billing at alarmingly high rates. If we add up the billings for a whole practice and compare to other practices, the numbers often can’t be justified. Something is profoundly sick when young people go bankrupt having healthy babies while old people are treated by doctors being paid millions a year by the government.

Michael Olenick

West Palm Beach, Fla.