Results tagged “National Quality Forum” from Innovations

by Mary Agnes Carey, CQ Staff

Paying health care providers more to do quality work and insisting they abide by a set of minimum quality standards would go a long way toward improving the quality of medical care that patients receive, witnesses told the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday.

After his testimony, William Roper, chairman of the board of directors of the National Quality Forum, said he would tie as much as 5 to 10 percent of a provider's payment to the quality of care they delivered. Roper told the Finance panel that changing the health care industry's attitude about quality will take time but be well worth it.

By John Reichard, CQ Staff
 

Health policy analysts see many opportunities for eliminating wasteful spending on health care and improving quality at the same time, but lament a lack of funding for organizing these efforts.

Now under a little-noticed provision of the new Medicare law blocking physician payment cuts, efforts to set national priorities for quality and efficiency gains will accelerate, those analysts say.