What We’re Watching: September 10, 2019

TAKING CARE OF MOMS

The House is hosting a hearing on “Improving Maternal Health: Legislation to Advance Prevention Efforts and Access to Care.” A Premier member will be testifying and Premier submitted a testimony for the record. The hearing follows a CDC report released last week showing pregnancy-related mortalities continue to increase, and Black, American Indian, & Alaska Native women are more than 2.5 times as likely to die from pregnancy-related causes.

What we’re saying: Premier also released a report on maternal mortality last week based on a nationally representative analysis of 25 percent of all U.S. births. Premier looked more granularly into maternal mortality and morbidity trends, finding that delivery-related hospital-based maternal mortalities have decreased by 24 percent across more than 900 hospitals in the last decade. It also found the disparity gap among white women and all other races narrowed. In fact, Premier identified an 80 percent decrease in black mothers experiencing in-hospital, delivery-related mortalities. Premier identified a 36 percent increase in severe complications at the time of delivery, which could be tied to the CDC’s overall pregnancy-related mortality trend. Taken together, the Premier and the CDC reports point to a lack of care coordination outside the hospital and a focus on women’s health overall. Congress is considering a number of bills to extend Medicaid postpartum coverage from 60 days to a year, among other actions. Missing are new payment models and quality measures focused on better integrating care overall.

WE CAN GET YOU ON THE LIST

In conjunction with the bipartisan Congressional Health Care Innovation Caucus, Premier will be holding a Capitol Hill briefing on Tuesday, Sept. 17.

What we’re saying: The briefing will highlight how healthcare providers are successfully delivering improved patient care at lower costs through two-sided risk-based payment models. Several Premier member health systems will speak to their care delivery innovations in alternative payment models and what is needed from Congress to ensure their success.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

• Is US Healthcare Prepared to Weather Hurricanes and Other Natural Disasters?
• Premier Statement on Maternal Mortality
• Delivery-Related Maternal Mortalities in the Hospital Decreased by 24% from 2008-2018
• Bundle of Joy: Maternal & Infant Health Trends
• Advisor Live Webinar: Reviewing the Medicare Hospital and Physician Payment Rules: IPPS, OPPS and PFS
• Complying with the Protecting Access to Medicare Act can be Easy
• Dr. Patel’s Outlook on Cancer Care’s Bright Future
• Value-Based Care Necessitates Shift in Primary Care Staffing Model
• Women leaders still face roadblocks on path to C-suite

What We’re Watching is a weekly blog focused on the current events Premier is following and their relevance to the work of Premier and its members. Check out last week's update.