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September 09, 2011 | Mary Mosquera, Government Health IT
WASHINGTON – The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is under pressure to establish the components of the health reform law and demonstrate quality and cost improvements, even as some lawmakers call for cuts to Medicare and other health programs in a difficult economy.
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CMS believes that improving health care will decrease costs and make it more sustainable, similar to the strategy that almost every other industrial sector has followed. Consumers have come to expect that as manufacturers significantly boosted the functionality of their computers and laptops that prices drop dramatically, he noted.
“That relationship to getting better and getting less expensive is true with health care. It is within our grasp. You can see piece by piece, case by case, examples of that playing out,” Berwick said at a Sept. 8 briefing sponsored by Health Affairs to highlight the journal’s September issue on “The New Urgency to Lower Costs.”
Examples of some of the categories include overtreatment, failure to coordinate care, gaps in care delivery because best practices are not followed, pricing that is not responsive, administrative procedures that add unnecessary burden to care and fraud and abuse.
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