Providers and policy makers have struggled to find solutions to rein in health care costs while improving clinical outcomes. Clinical integration is one approach to meet these challenges.
In short, clinical integration is a legal arrangement for healthcare provider integration that involves a carefully structured collaboration of healthcare professionals to provide coordinated care across multiple settings that improves quality and safety, increases efficiency, delivers high patient and family satisfaction, and is based as much as possible on evidence-based medicine. Becoming “clinically integrated” is one important avenue by which providers can engage in joint contracting activities while avoiding scrutiny under the antitrust laws.
In the past, physicians handled clinical matters while healthcare administrators handled finance and operations. Today, their roles have blurred, for example, in efforts to decrease hospital-acquired conditions and readmissions. Moreover, reimbursement is beginning to involve risk-sharing, which requires healthcare professionals to work together more closely to provide coordinated care.
To help meet these challenges, we are pleased to announce the publication of Clinical Integration: A Pathway to 21st Century US Healthcare, an e-book co-authored by Squire Patton Boggs partner Peter A. Pavarini, co-leader of the firm’s Healthcare Practice Group, and Kenneth H. Cohn M.D.
The 21-page e-book is now available for US$2.99 on Amazon.
