|
|
 |
|
Provider Supply Series
Part II of IV
|
|
Government agencies, physicians, associations, and policy writers have long attempted to understand and make predictions regarding the supply of, and demand for, the U.S. healthcare workforce. HC Topics' four-part Provider Supply Series will address the history of provider regulation and its relation to the impending shortage of physician providers given looming demand. The first article in the series introduced the Graduate Medical Education National Advisory Committee (GMENAC) report, published in 1980, recommending that medical school enrollment should be limited to prevent a surplus of providers. The second article in the series examines the after effect of the GMENAC report and sets the stage for further discussion regarding the recently publicized provider shortages.
|
 Provider Supply Series: The Aftermath of GMENAC
Despite some opposition to the Graduate Medical Education National Advisory Committee (GMENAC) recommendations to reduce the size of medical schools' entering classes in order to counter a projected oversupply of physicians in the healthcare market, policy makers implemented many of the report's suggestions. By the early 1990s, physicians and policy makers were beginning to call into question their previously confident predictions, and by the mid-1990s it became clear that reactions to GMENAC's predictions of a physician oversupply had led to a shortage. (Read more...)
|
|
CMS Auditing Program: Back to the Drawing Board?
Over the past several months, the OIG has released several reports identifying problems with the Medicaid Integrity Program, the Comprehensive Error Rate Testing (CERT) Program, and the Medicare-Medicaid Data Match (Medi-Medi) Program, pinpointing potential ineffectiveness of the programs and significant inaccuracies in their results. (Read more...)
|
|
Hospital Expansion: Coordinated Care or a Vie for Insured Patient
In what has been termed the "geographic expansion race," U.S. hospitals have begun employing new strategies to expand their market presence and compete for valuable insured patients. A fourteen-year study by the Center for Studying Health System Change analyzed the various expansion strategies employed, and the market composition that resulted. While hospitals insist that geographic expansion will allow them to improve access to care, others in the industry have criticized this new trend for its potential effect on access to care for uninsured patient populations. (Read more...)
|
|
Office-Based Surgery Provides Greater Autonomy for Physicians
Office-based outpatient surgeries (OBS) have significantly increased in recent years, with a growing number of specialists electing to perform surgeries in their own offices rather than at outpatient hospitals or ambulatory surgery centers. Popularity of OBS has been driven by the potential benefits to provider autonomy, however, commentators have expressed concern regarding the lack of regulation of the physician office setting. (Read more...)
|
|
 |
|
