Health Policy Commission

A missed healthcare opportunity

Economy/ Health Care/ Opinion

A missed healthcare opportunity

Legislature's failure to pass reform endangers survival of smaller hospitals and facilities

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MASSACHUSETTS MISSED AN opportunity to address some of the most crucial healthcare challenges facing the state when the Legislature failed to reach agreement on a sweeping reform bill this session. It’s disappointing, particularly because the reforms thoughtfully formulated over the past several months are vital to many of our local communities, hospitals, workers, and patients.(...)

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Health care watchdog: BI-Lahey merger will hike costs

Economy/ Health Care

Health care watchdog: BI-Lahey merger will hike costs

Commission members think new system can work with conditions

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A REPORT ON by the state’s health care industry watchdog analyzing the proposed merger of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Lahey Health says the marriage won’t produce the kinds of savings the hospitals project nor tamp down Partners HealthCare’s stranglehold on the market. But members of the Health Policy Commission aren’t convinced that the models(...)

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The Download/ Health Care

The Codcast: A devilish health care merger

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Two of the state’s leading health care analysts say they aren’t sure whether creating a powerful alternative to Partners HealthCare will reduce health care costs in Massachusetts or increase them. “It’s the devil you know versus the devil you don’t know,” said John E. McDonough, a professor of public health practice at the TH Chan(...)

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Health Policy Commission pans Partners-Mass. Eye & Ear deal

Health Care

Health Policy Commission pans Partners-Mass. Eye & Ear deal

Report finds higher costs likely from proposed acquisition

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THE STATE HEALTH POLICY COMMISSION is pouring lots of cold water on the proposed acquisition by Partners HealthCare of the Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary, saying the deal would increase health care spending without necessarily improving quality and could make it harder for some patients to access the eye and ear hospital’s specialty services. The(...)

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Improving health outcomes through social services

Health Care

Improving health outcomes through social services

Interest grows in integrating health care and social service spending

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WHAT IF THE answer to ever-rising health care costs doesn’t lie in figuring out better ways to deliver medical care, but in things like ensuring access to good nutrition, adequate housing, or even job training? That was the outside-the-health-care-box message members of the state Health Policy Commission heard on Tuesday morning from health policy researcher(...)

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