Health Law Advisor

by Brandon C. Ge

In the months leading up to Election Day 2012, the pace of health reform implementation slowed considerably as the Obama administration held off on releasing regulations to avoid pre-election controversy. With the 2012 elections now in the books, health reform has scored two major victories: the re-election of President Barack Obama and the preservation of a Democratic majority in the Senate. Although the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is now safe from repeal, implementation still faces hurdles, such as state resistance, the fiscal cliff, and pending lawsuits ...

by Ross K. Friedberg, Shawn M. Gilman, Mark E. Lutes, David E. Matyas, René Y. Quashie, Serra J. Schlanger, Carrie Valiant, Dale C. Van Demark, and Lesley R. Yeung

On October 20, 2011, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services ("CMS") released its final rule ("Final Rule") implementing the voluntary Medicare Shared Savings Program ("Program") for accountable care organizations ("ACOs"). The Program was established by Section 3022 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The Final Rule was released in conjunction with revised antitrust guidance from the Federal ...

As the health care world awaits the Medicare Shared Savings Program regulations expected to be issued soon by CMS, below is a wish list for key attributes that I hope the regulations evidence:

1. Flexibility. 

 "Transforming health care everywhere starts with transforming it somewhere." I hope that CMS takes Atul Gawande's advice and avoids being too proscriptive in launching the Share Savings Program. To me, the biggest risk to the program is being deemed a failure for having gone down too narrow a path that turns out to be unsuccessful.

Useful approaches have been suggested for ...