With the recent passing of Jerry Nelson, the voice of Sesame Street's Count von Count, I'm compelled to note that the 2012 edition of Modern Healthcare's 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare list had 18 first-timers, eight 11-timers, 78 men, 22 women and 25 doctors (20 men and five women).
No doctor is on the "perennial" list of eight people who made the list all 11 years of its existence.
In order of their appearance on this year's list, here are the names of the 25 physicians, followed by their titles and the number of times they've appeared on the Most Influential list:
No. 3, Dr. John Kitzhaber, governor of Oregon, (1); No. 17, Dr. John Noseworthy, president and CEO, Mayo Clinic, (2); No. 20, Dr. Regina Benjamin, U.S. Surgeon General, (3); No. 21, Dr. Delos "Toby" Cosgrove, (6); No. 26, Dr. Atul Gawande, professor, Harvard Medical School, (1); No. 29, Dr. Gary Gottlieb, president and CEO, Partners HealthCare System, (6); No. 32, Dr. Carolyn Clancy, director of HHS Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, (10); No. 34, Dr. Farzad Mostashari, national coordinator for health information technology, (2); No. 41, Dr. Gary Kaplan, chairman and CEO, Virginia Mason Medical Center, (4); Dr. Susan Turney, president and CEO, MGMA-ACMPE, (1); No. 46, Dr. Thomas Frieden, director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, (3); No. 50, Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, president and CEO, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, (7); No. 51, Dr. Mark Chassin, president of the Joint Commission, (5); No. 53, Dr. Glenn Steele Jr., president and CEO, Geisinger Health System, (4); No. 58, Dr. Margaret Hamburg, Commissioner, Food and Drug Administration, (3): No. 60, Dr. Francis Collins, director, National Institutes of Health, (3); No. 63, Dr. Harvey Fineberg, president, Institute of Medicine, (4); No. 64, Dr. Eric Topol, chief academic officer, Scripps Health, (2); No. 68, Dr. Bruce Siegel, president and CEO, National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems, (2); No. 75, Dr. Ralph de la Torre, chairman and CEO, Steward Health Care System, (1); No. 80, Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director, American Public Health Association, (6); No. 85, Dr. James Madara, executive vice president and CEO, American Medical Association, (1); No. 88, Dr. Richard Gilfillan, acting director, CMS Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, (2); No. 94, Dr. Darrell Kirch, president and CEO, Association of American Medical Colleges, (5); and No. 97, Dr. Charles Sorenson, president and CEO, Intermountain Healthcare, (2).
Congratulations one and all. Was there an influential physician you thought should have been on the 2012 list? Let me know at arobeznieks@modernhealthcare.com. Follow Andis Robeznieks on Twitter: @MHARobeznieks.
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The 500 medical practices participating in the CMS Comprehensive Primary Care Initiative are going to be under a lot of pressure, as it is now up to them to prove that the patient-centered medical-home model works clinically and economically.
Let's face it: Government-sponsored pilot programs and demonstration projects come and go. Most produce some headlines at their launch, then they generate a few research papers a year or three after their completion, and then they're forgotten.
But hopes are higher for the CPCI, which was described as "very well-conceived, well-designed and, so far, a well-executed program" by Patrick Gordon, program director for the Colorado Beacon Consortium and director of government programs for consortium member Rocky Mountain Health Plans based in Grand Junction, Colo., an area contending for the country's coordinated-care crown.
The key to the four-year effort is that around 60% of the patient bases for participating practices will be covered by plans providing per member, per month management fees. In the case of Medicare, it will be $20, with the fees for Medicaid and other participating private payers yet to be determined.
According to Gordon, it could "fundamentally change the economics of primary care" if the care coordination results in fewer hospitalizations and lower global costs to the country's healthcare bill.
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According to two influential GOP lawmakers, doctors will not have their Medicare pay cut by around 30% in January as called for by the sustainable growth-rate reimbursement formula. However, the lawmakers differ on when the much-hated SGR will be repealed for good.
Both Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the party's presumptive vice presidential candidate, who finished No. 24 on Modern Healthcare's 2012 Most Influential People in Healthcare list, and Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, No. 56 on the list, seemed certain that another temporary fix will be approved by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama before the scheduled pay cut kicks in.
"No one is going to go home to their state to tell doctors we're cutting their pay 30%," Grassley said during an interview with Modern Healthcare for the Most Influential list.
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Just in time for the Republican and Democratic presidential conventions, the American College of Physicians has released a position paper telling the people who keep saying they don't want politicians to get between patients and their doctors to stop placing themselves between patients and their doctors.
"Some recent laws and proposed legislation appear to inappropriately infringe on clinical medical practice and patient-physician relationships, crossing traditional boundaries and intruding into the realm of medical professionalism," Dr. David Bronson, president of the ACP, said in a news release.
The ACP spelled out its stance in a 12-page Statement of Principles on the Role of Governments in Regulating the Patient-Physician Relationship (PDF). The statement noted that of particular concern were laws and regulations "that require physicians to provide care not supported by evidence-based guidelines and/or not individualized to the needs of the specific patient."
Approaching the subject politely, the paper begins by stating that "it may be difficult to distinguish between mandates that interfere with clinical practice versus those that promote good public health," but it goes on to basically say that unless you have scientific evidence supporting your position, don't tell us what to say and don't tell us what to do.
And it's about time someone said it.
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Consolidation is occurring everywhere in healthcare. Without the involvement of public shareholders' or taxpayers' dollars, private companies have become very private about how much they're spending on their latest acquisition—unless the deal lands in court.
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The reader comment sections on news websites and the Twitter-sphere can be nasty places. Unfortunately, it took the untimely death of Dr. Donald Liu to demonstrate that those electronic opinionators can be used for better purposes.
Liu, 50, was the surgeon in chief at the University of Chicago's Comer Children's Hospital since 2007, and he drowned in Lake Michigan on Aug. 5 after helping save two boys who were struggling in the water.
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Like the medical research paper whose chief finding is that more research is needed, the Liaison Committee on Medical Education put Puerto Rico's San Juan Bautista School of Medicine on probation so its problems could be studied. And, after studying them, the LCME decided to keep the school on probation.
And, while on probation, it maintains its accreditation.
Why it remains on probation remains under wraps, so it's sort of a double-secret probation.
"We're not allowed to release any information," Dan Hunt, LCME secretary, told me.
"Accreditation is not guaranteed," he added. "Accreditation can be revoked."
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