More light than heat: Mayo Clinic National Symposium on Health Care Reform

Four hundred thought leaders and jes’ folks convened in Virginia to hash out some ideas for the next President and Congress.  Here are excerpts from the Mayo Clinic Health Policy Center symposium’s closing press release:

Over the last two years, Mayo Clinic Health Policy Center has gathered hundreds of national thought leaders for a series of events to help develop new, consensus-driven principles to guide the reform process.

Participants recommended four areas of focus: insurance for all, coordinated care, value and payment reform. Using these cornerstones as a baseline, participants at the [Mayo-sponsored] symposium [this week] developed a handful of action steps for the private sector and the next president/Congress to address.

Recommended actions include:

Private sector action steps:

* Payment Reform
Make the case for payment reform with properly aligned incentives (outcomes, prevention, wellness, “virtual” appointments, etc.).

* Universal Clinical IT
Establish universal use of interoperable electronic clinical information technology systems (systems that can share information).

* High-Cost Service Program
Develop care programs for high-impact/high-cost services (end-of-life care, chronic diseases, etc).

*Coordinating Care Team
Incent delivery model which provides a defined care coordinator for chronic and acute conditions (i.e. medical home).

Government sector action steps:

* Insurance for All
Ensure/mandate insurance coverage for all.

* Interoperable EMR
Require all providers to have interoperable electronic medical records within a certain time (4-5 years) with patient accessibility.

*Pay for Value
Direct Medicare to pay for value/outcomes/prevention using innovative payment models.

* Federal Health Reserve
Implement an independent “Federal Health Reserve Board” to set rules/standards to promote value in health care.

*Care Coordination
Reward care coordination (whether provided by primary care provider, specialist or other caregiver).

. . .

Following this symposium, the Mayo Clinic Health Policy Center will convene smaller, cross-sector groups to formulate and implement more detailed action plans to accomplish the larger group’s top priorities.

More details, and PowerPoint presentations, are available on the Mayo health policy symposium blog. 

As my kids would say, "Big whoop."  There are no new ideas here (unless I’m missing something).  And 400 thought leaders toiling over a plan to present to the President and Congress smacks of the worst aspects of the HillaryCare process, circa 1993.

Don’t get me wrong: there are some good ideas here, and some bright lights working on getting the details right.  But when you put 400 providers, payors, employers, patients and wonks together in a room, the consensus document is just not likely to be earth-shattering.

The value this group can bring to the table — so long as it is able to avoid the stigma associated with HillaryCare I, which would be no mean feat — is in fleshing out some workable details for each of these high-level areas of interest.  Whether this can be accomplished remains to be seen.

— David Harlow