CAP TODAY Pathology/Laboratory Medicine/Laboratory Management
He sees some of the recommendations as more achievable than others.
“Earlier detection of cancer, whether it be through liquid biopsies or earlier risk-stratification of patients using combinatorial factors based on EHRs and family history, is the most likely attainable goal of the Cancer Moonshot,” Dr. Donaldson says.
Dr. Donaldson
The CAP can play an important role in that element of the moonshot plan through its work to standardize how cancers are reported, he says. Already, a California pilot project to create a cancer registry based on the CAP’s electronic forms and reporting module is underway. The data, transmitted by 10 hospitals to the state health department, are being used to improve care and cancer control efforts for other patients throughout the Golden State. CAP president Richard Friedberg, MD, gave a talk about the CAP’s cancer-reporting and registry work at a Washington, DC, moonshot summit in June.
Dr. Donaldson says another achievable plank in the moonshot plan is the call for “standardization of the detection technology out there.” He sees a “huge need to go through and classify and quantitate the performance characteristics of these methods,” such as next-generation sequencing and liquid biopsy.
Pathologists and laboratory medicine professionals “need to sit at the table and let people know there are experts in this area, on the traceability of these methodologies,” Dr. Donaldson says. “We need to make sure these tests are measuring the same thing and that they’re comparable.” —Kevin B. O’Reilly
Survey: MACRA will push doctors to leave small practices
Medicare’s new physician incentive and alternative payment models will lead to more doctors seeking employment with large practices or hospital systems, says a Modern Healthcare survey of 93 health care leaders.
Under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, known as MACRA, doctors who fail to meet certain metrics under the Merit-Based Incentive Payment Program were initially in line for a penalty. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services acting administrator Andy Slavitt responded last month to complaints from organized medicine by withdrawing any physician pay cut for 2019 so long as doctors, in 2017, report some data to the agency’s Quality Payment Program or take part in what the CMS calls an Alternative Payment Model. After that one-year reprieve, the MACRA physician pay penalties will take full effect.
Prior to Slavitt’s announcement, 70 percent of the health care leaders surveyed said MACRA’s reporting requirements were more burdensome than the agency’s previous physician quality incentive payment efforts. Ninety-one percent of the leaders from hospitals, health insurers, physician groups, and trade associations told Modern Healthcare they expect the MACRA requirements will lead to even more doctors seeking salaried positions with health systems or large practices over the next few years.
Three-quarters of respondents predicted the CMS program would lead to greater stress among physicians. About half said more physician practices would take on risk-based contracts as a result of MACRA and that more doctors would opt out of Medicare. Just three percent of respondents said MACRA will result in “little change in physicians’ relationships with the CMS” or have “little impact on where or how physicians choose to practice.” Eight in 10 respondents said that, overall, physician burnout is on the rise. The survey results were published in the Sept. 5 issue of Modern Healthcare. —Kevin B. O’Reilly
War College, DxMA meetings coordinated
The Dark Intelligence Group and Diagnostic Marketing Association will hold their 2017 annual conferences in sequence, in the Sheraton New Orleans Hotel, to make it easier for laboratory leaders to attend both meetings.
The DxMA Global Marketing Summit will begin the evening of April 30, 2017 with the Dx Creative Communications Awards ceremony, and it will continue May 1 with the Global Marketing Summit featuring technology and marketing sessions.
The Dark Intelligence Group, publisher of the Dark Report, will kick off its Executive War College conference the evening of May 1 with its welcome receptions and will continue May 2–3, featuring sessions on regulation, payment, and management.
The DxMA Global Marketing Summit gathers leaders from more than 50 diagnostics companies.
Registration opens Dec. 1.
Danaher to buy Cepheid for $4 billion
Danaher has entered into a definitive merger agreement with Cepheid pursuant to which Danaher will acquire all of the outstanding shares of Cepheid for $53 per share in cash, or a total enterprise value of about $4 billion including indebtedness and net of acquired cash.
The acquisition has been unanimously approved by each company’s board of directors. The offer is subject to customary conditions, including approval by Cepheid’s shareholders and receipt of applicable regulatory approvals. The transaction is expected to be completed before the new year.