Julie Ferguson did an outstanding job with the Health Wonk Review this week at Workers’ Comp Insider. Several of this week’s post qualify as “must-reads” in my opinion:
- Dr. Roy Poses takes a look at a hospital in TN that froze employee vacation time accruals last spring – along with cutting other benefits – and then relied heavily on federal funds to get the hospital back on track financially later in the year. And then the board voted to award $1.7 million in bonuses, spread across 99 executives and managers. But no bonuses for the actual healthcare providers who took care of patients all year. The board has backed off from the proposed bonuses, but the whole thing is an example of what-not-to-do if you’re looking to improve employee morale in a hospital. If they’ve got $1.7 million to give out in bonuses (which is debatable), why not split it up across the entire workforce, especially given the sacrifices that were expected of workers throughout the year?
- Joe Paduda details how our healthcare system has improved in the years since the ACA was signed into law. It’s not perfect, and there’s plenty of room for improvement. But Joe notes that there are no other proposals on the table that could do a better job, and the ACA isn’t going anywhere.
- Payment reform is a huge talking point in healthcare media these days. But Alan Weil’s post, “Why I oppose payment reform” makes a lot of very good points and is definitely worth reading. Weil doesn’t actually oppose payment reform – he’s just making very valid points about the proposals that are currently gaining traction and explaining why they might not be the best course of action. And since criticism without suggesting alternatives isn’t particularly helpful, he’s written a great follow-up post with ideas for how we can implement successful payment reform.
That’s just a few of the many really good posts in this week’s Health Wonk Review – an excellent edition to wrap up 2014. We hope you all have a wonderful holiday season, and that 2015 gets off to a great start for all of our clients, readers, and colleagues. Cheers!
