America’s health system faces a crisis of value. In an effort to stimulate dialogue and offer opportunities to learn about emerging and resurgent ideas for addressing this crisis, the National Coalition on Health Care is launching its NCHC Forums, an ongoing program of monthly educational briefings that will showcase a rich variety of speakers and topics.
Our inaugural forum will feature Dr. Elliott Fisher of the Dartmouth Institute of Health Policy and Clinical Practice. Dr. Fisher and his colleagues at the Dartmouth Institute have been important intellectual leaders in the national effort to understand the complex challenge of health spending, producing influential analyses of variation in health care costs and advancing innovative solutions like Accountable Care Organizations and shared decision-making.
In their January 2012 JAMA article, “Withholds to Slow Medicare Spending: A Better Deal than Cuts,” Drs. Fisher, Skinner and Weinstein offer a new approach that seeks to accelerate delivery reform, achieve scoreable savings and avoid across-the-board cuts in provider reimbursement. As policymakers struggle in the coming months to find sustainable solutions to Medicare’s provider payment and overall health spending challenges, Dartmouth’s ideas could move to the forefront of the health policy agenda.