Kathleen Mears Memorial Lecture: personal accountability: your key to survival in health care reform

Abstract

Over the past thirty years the rising cost of healthcare has produced changes in reimbursement strategies. Continually, pressures are placed on the practitioners to reduce the length of the patient hospital stay and provide services in a high quality, risk free, cost effective manner. Following the implementation of diagnostic related groups (DRGs) in the 1980s and Managed Care in the 1990s we are now faced with embracing and surviving the Affordable Health Care Act-H.R.3590 (HHS 2013) that is linking reimbursement to quality outcomes. In short, financial constraints in the funding of health care will once more alter the patterns of delivery and challenge the practitioners to maintain superior care. As Neurodiagnostic Professionals this new reform offers another opportunity to review our process of care and the Neurodiagnostic labs role in the delivery of healthcare. For success, close examination of routine workflows, recognizing and solving existing delivery limitations, developing team care coordination, and increasing the neurodiagnostic professionals profile within the work environment will be required. Embracing your role in this overall process will most likely demand more paperwork, changing protocols, learning and implementing new policies, accepting new work schedules, implementing new quality standards, and pursuing additional education or credentials. Unlike never before more emphasis will be placed on measuring and reporting on the quality of the care we deliver in our labs, intensive care units, and operating rooms.