William Matzner, MD
starts Blog with information and insights on effective health care management
Experienced doctor’s
blog will address medical practice management issues that affect the delivery
of cost-effective health care.
Doctor
William Matzner, with decades of experience practicing medicine and a business
education, started a Blog to provide on practice management, available at
https://drwilliammatzner.blogspot.com
https://drwilliammatzner.blogspot.com
In
this era of increasing competitiveness and innovation, measuring the
effectiveness of health and wellness programs using Cost Effectiveness
Analysis is of crucial importance in the health care sector. In his Blog,
Dr. Matzner review the significant forces that in the last several years have
been changing the way healthcare has and will continue to be delivered. The
emergence of more unique ways to deliver care such as clinics incorporated into
businesses and factories, the increased use of mid-level providers (nurse
practitioners & physician assistants), the increase integration of
technologies such as telemedicine and robotics and the shift from
interventional reimbursement to outcomes reimbursement are just a few examples.
Compounding
these are the ever-increasing costs of healthcare, the strain of funding
Medicare on the U.S. economy, and the complications of insurance and healthcare
payments under the affordable care act, ACA.
This
has led to changes in how businesses intend to interface with the healthcare
system going forward. CVS's acquisition of Aetna will try to leverage
healthcare delivery through their pharmacy structure. United Healthcare's
acquisition of DaVita hopes to leverage cost containment and resource control
by directly controlling physicians. And the recently announced collaboration
among Berkshire Hathaway, Amazon and J.P. Morgan Chase presents a yet unknown
structure whose stated goals is improved quality and less cost. How they will
implement their strategy is yet to emerge.
The
big question then with these new ventures are how do organizations know what
works financially and how do they track performance. In other words, how does
one you track, measure and value the relationships between cost and outcomes?
How can the analyst measure which methods(s) may generate better or best outcomes?
While
there are no perfect answers, Dr. Matzner will offer his experience and insight
on his blog. For example: A simple return on investment, ROI, calculation will
not provide needed nor valid insights. However, the use of cost-effectiveness
analysis (CEA) would provide quite useful, valid and actionable information.
CEA uses decision tree models to compare not only cost outcomes but
effectiveness outcomes of various treatments on patient health and even on
future healthcare usage based on various current actions. It can further be
used to determine how effective a set amount of money spent on a particular
treatment or method will impact outcomes (i.e. willingness to pay calculation).
CEA models are flexible and can incorporate a wide variety of scenarios. As
opposed to Big Data, CEA makes use of Broad Data so that comparisons of
treatment modalities can be evaluated using real life outcomes. It can compare
effects on a discrete problem such as a cancer tumor, or on chronic ongoing
diseases such as COPD or CHF.
As
the delivery of effective yet profitable, or at least cost effective,
healthcare becomes more challenging, methods for evaluating treatments and
programs become more necessary if not essential. Methods must be implemented to
evaluate these new treatments and programs once they are in place so
adjustments can be made. CEA enable organizations to both initially evaluate
and subsequently monitor new methods and programs in a meaningful way.
About William L.
Matzner, M.D., PhD, FACP
Dr.
Matzner graduated Phi Beta Kapa from Stanford University. He received his M.D.
with Honors from Baylor College of Medicine. In 1988, he was the Soloman
Scholar for Resident Research at Cedar Sinai Medical Center. Dr. Matzner
subsequently was awarded a PhD in Neuro Economics from Claremont Graduate
University. He is board certified in Internal Medicine and Palliative Medicine.
He has researched and published extensively on the issue of reproduction and
immunology in medical literature. He has been in private practice since 1989,
specializing in Reproductive Immunology and Internal medicine.
