A Nurse Practitioner's View

With all the  recent  discussion on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) being heard before the Supreme Court, I wanted to discuss one of the programs that was borne from the ACA. The  Centers for Medicare & Medicaid  (CMS) define Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) as "... groups of doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers, who come together voluntarily to give coordinated high quality care to their Medicare patients. The goal of coordinated care is to ensure that patients, especially the chronically ill, get the right care at the right time, while avoiding unnecessary duplication of services and preventing medical errors." Wow, this sounds great so far, and seems to be congruent with nurse practitioner-partnered care, what could be wrong with this model? Read on. The "ACO Professional" is  defined , "...as a physician (as defined in section 1861(r)(1) of the Act) or a practitioner described in section 1842(b)(18)(C)(i) the Act (that is, a p...

I was recently contacted by a member of the National Health Services Corps (NHSC) and asked to highlight their program here on my blog. It certainly sounds like a wonderful opportunity for NPs regarding loan repayment. So here it goes: The NHSC is a federal program that offers primary care providers financial support in the form of loan repayment or scholarships so they can practice in underserved areas of the country without the burden of educational debt. The NHSC is currently expanding to help meet the need for primary care professionals. The current application cycle for loan repayment closes on May 26th and applications are now being accepted for the NHSC scholarship program . As the country faces a shortage of primary care providers, the NHSC plays a critical role in bringing primary care medical, dental and mental health professionals to communities in which people would otherwise have to travel miles for health care, or go without help. In return, the NHSC offers hel...