Combining Quality with Value at NEQCA

The New England Quality Care Alliance (NEQCA) is a partnership of community and academic physicians dedicated to providing comprehensive, innovative, high quality and affordable health care. As Chief Financial Officer, Nate Gagne is accountable for the performance of NEQCA’s accounting, finance and information technology departments. Nate explains his role and how his team strives to provide better care, better health, lower cost and higher clinician satisfaction.

Combining Quality with Value at NEQCA
Unlocking Accountable Care: Season 1, Episode 16
Season 1Sarah DohlComment
Legislative Efforts to Restructure MA's Medicaid Program

In this episode we hear from Mike Cannella, Assistant General Counsel for the Massachusetts Health Connector. Prior to his current role, Cannella served as the Legislative Director and Counsel for Massachusetts State Senator James T. Welch. This episode is packed with interesting insights into Massachusetts’ legislative efforts to restructure the state’s Medicaid program. 

Legislative Efforts to Restructure MA's Medicaid Program
Unlocking Accountable Care: Season 1, Episode 15
Season 1Sarah DohlComment
Leveraging Pharmacists to Reduce Cost of Care & More

Yvonne LeBlanc, Manager of Pharmacy Operations for New England Quality Care Alliance (NEQCA), discusses the role of pharmacists in accountable care. This episode explores how clinical pharmacists are underutilized despite what we now know about their ability to help contain total cost of care for patients and ensure high quality of care – and how ACOs can better leverage pharmacy resources to impact their populations.

Leveraging Pharmacists to Reduce Cost of Care & More
Unlocking Accountable Care: Season 1, Episode 14
Season 1Sarah DohlComment
A Value-based Model for Communities to Improve Health

Fred Goldstein, President & Founder of Accountable Health, shares his thoughts about giving communities a mechanism to create interventions to improve their own health. In the value-based world, health care providers are trying to keep people healthy and are incentivized to do so, but what if we shift some of that responsibility and those incentive dollars to the communities themselves?

A Value-based Model for Communities to Improve Health
Unlocking Accountable Care: Season 1, Episode 13
National Medicaid Landscape

Clay Farris, Practice Lead of Mostly Medicaid, joins us to talk about the national Medicaid landscape. He discusses value-based care in Medicaid, how to succeed as a Medicaid ACO, and what to expect moving forward.

The National Medicaid Value-Based Care Landscape (feat. Clay Farris)
Unlocking Accountable Care: Season 1, Episode 12
Community Partners Caring for the Highest Need Patients

Learn about the role community based organizations play in serving patients with high needs and the imperative for these community partners and ACOs to partner to provide care coordination and care management for patients with severe mental illness. Our own Lisette Roman sits down with Mary Takach, Senior Health Policy Advisor at Boston Healthcare for the Homeless, to learn about their efforts to care for the homeless population in a risk-based environment.

Community Partners Caring for the Highest Need Patients
Unlocking Accountable Care: Season 1, Episode 11
Season 1Sarah DohlComment
Beyond the Buzzwords: Behavioral Health Integration for Successful Whole Person

Dr. John Sargent, Chief of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Tufts Medical Center, discusses the importance of behavioral health care as an integrated component of primary care and his role as a pediatric psychiatry consultant to primary care physicians and care teams in a Medicaid Accountable Care Organization. We dive into how an ACO can ensure that patients are receiving the right level of behavioral health care at the right time.

Beyond the Buzzwords
Unlocking Accountable Care: Season 1, Episode 10
Season 1Sarah DohlComment
Why are We Failing at Addiction, and How Can We Succeed?

Hear Dr. Corey Waller, a national addiction expert, discuss what the health care system can be doing better to treat substance use disorders, why ACOs should be focusing on addiction, and how addiction can be successfully treated as a chronic disease.

Why are We Failing at Addiction, and How Can We Succeed?
Unlocking Accountable Care: Season 1, Episode 9
Season 1Sarah DohlComment
Impacting Patients' Lives Through Case Management

Interdisciplinary case management can not only lower total cost of care, but also improve patients' lives. Our own Sarah Matousek sits down with a case management team to learn about how the MassHealth Medicaid program is allowing them to use meaningful interventions.

Impacting Patients' Lives Through Case Management
Unlocking Accountable Care: Season 1, Episode 8
Season 1Sarah DohlComment
Connecting with the Community for Better Care

Connecting with community organizations allows providers to better coordinate care, meet patient needs, and provide services in an accessible way. Sarah and Sheila discuss the importance of community connections for community health.

Connecting with the Community for Better Care
Unlocking Accountable Care: Season 1, Episode 7
Season 1Sarah DohlComment
Creating Value Through Financing Models

The financial incentives and alternative payment model details play a key role in determining the impact and success of Accountable Care Organizations. Sarah and Dr. Seeley discuss the current financial structures and what trends we are likely to see.

Creating Value Through Financing Models
Unlocking Accountable Care: Season 1, Episode 6
Season 1Sarah DohlComment
Why Housing is a Smart Healthcare Investment

As an ER physician, Dr. Thea James has long been a leading voice advocating that hospitals need to invest in addressing the root causes of health that drive people to show up in her ER. In this episode, we will hear about the powerful programs that Dr. James and Boston Medical Center have invested in to improve social determinants of health for patients they serve in Boston.

Why Housing is a Smart Healthcare Investment
Unlocking Accountable Care: Season 1, Episode 5
Season 1Sarah DohlComment
Turning Data into Patient Health

Comprehensively collecting and analyzing patient data can give providers a more complete picture of their patient’s health and better direct care and resources. In this episode, we hear how one innovative MassHealth ACO is using data and highlight best practices for all organizations transitioning to value-based care.

Turning Data into Patient Health
Unlocking Accountable Care: Season 1, Episode 4
Season 1Sarah DohlComment
How to Put Patients First in a Changing World

Doctors are increasingly being pulled in multiple directions based on whether they are still being paid a flat fee for every service they provide, given a lump sum per patient or procedure, or are being asked to focus on the health of an entire patient population. Dr. Namita Mohta and Sarah dive into how providers and healthcare organizations today can navigate these conflicting incentives.

How to Put Patients First in a Changing World
Unlocking Accountable Care: Season 1, Episode 3
Season 1Sarah DohlComment
Creating a Culture of Collaboration

Insurers and providers often see each other as adversaries, but ACO arrangements offer a unique opportunity to align interests and bring them onto the same team. Sarah sits down with Mike Nickey of Fallon Health to discuss how insurers and providers are being more collaborative than ever to implement value-based care.

Creating a Culture of Collaboration
Unlocking Accountable Care: Season 1, Episode 2
Season 1Sarah DohlComment
The Journey to Value Based Care

Dr. John McDonough has been on the forefront of health reform for the better part of three decades – working intimately on the design and passage of both Massachusetts’ landmark 2006 healthcare law and later the Affordable Care Act. In this episode, John sits down with Sarah to discuss what value-based care means for the delivery of medicine, how we got here, and what makes MassHealth’s Medicaid ACO approach unique.

The Journey to Value Based Care
Unlocking Accountable Care: Season 1, Episode 1