Cantwell Pushes Health Care Quality, Not Quantity

As T. R. Reid mentioned at Seattle Arts & Lectures, Washington is pretty good at staying healthy for less money. We’re 35th among all states in per-person Medicare costs, averaging $7,100 per year, which is over $1,000 less than the national average.

But our physicians haven’t been getting credit for that. Instead, states where doctors spend more have been first in line for federal dollars. As part of the health care reform bill, Senator Maria Cantwell authored a new reimbursement formula that rewards states like Washington, and makes serving Medicare patients less of a financial grind for state physicians.

As her press office’s news release helpfully explains:

Cantwell’s “value-based index” rewards doctors for providing high quality, efficient, and coordinated care. The measure replaces the current system that rewards practitioners for ordering often redundant or unnecessary tests and procedures, contributing to an estimated $120 billion per year in unnecessary spending.

Speaking at Swedish Medical Center’s 100th Anniversary Symposium, Cantwell said, “My Medicare value-based index fixes this inefficient system by leveling the playing field, and now, for the first time, doctors will be penalized for over-using services.” This is the federal government, of course, so it’s not happening overnight.

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First, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had to determine what the value-based index standards are. Then, in 2012, HHS will go public with those standards, presumably to give doctors some runway in responding to them. 2013: the rulemaking process begins. 2015: a trial group of physicians operates under Cantwell’s value-based payment system. 2017: all Medicare reimbursements fall under the value-based system.