By Daniel J. Vukelich, AMDR
The acronyms and new terminology alone can be overwhelming: ACO: Accountable Care Organization; SSP: Shared Savings Program; VBP: Value-Based Purchasing; HIT: Health Information Technology; and of course, AMDR: Association of Medical Device Reprocessors.
Medical Device Reprocessors? What do medical device reprocessors have to do with ACOs or even healthcare reform for that matter? AMDR, the trade association representing America’ s third-party medical device reprocessing companies, is thrilled to co-sponsor this online forum with Squire, Sanders, & Dempsey, which focuses on Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), because we know healthcare professionals are looking for answers . . . and solutions.
Weeks or months will pass before most of us have digested the proposed ACO rules from CMS. In short, ACOs create incentives for healthcare providers to work together to treat an individual patient across care settings. The Medicare Shared Savings Program will reward ACOs that lower growth in healthcare costs while meeting performance standards concerning quality of care and putting patients first. And whether you call it an ACO or just smart healthcare, we all share the desire to provide the best possible outcomes for patients. AMDR is proud to be a part of this online forum that promotes the free exchange of information related to healthcare reform and the specifics to be addressed in the ACO rulemaking. Fundamentally, AMDR is proud to be a part of a forum that seeks to provide answers to clinicians and hospital managers on what this means for their facilities, for their patients and frankly, for themselves.
We are all also struggling to find solutions to reduce the cost of providing excellent healthcare. All healthcare facilities are forced to do more with less, and all the attention around healthcare reform has underscored that there will likely be even fewer financial resources in the future. As we all learn more about how ACOs will impact our facilities, healthcare providers will be tasked with continuing to provide the best possible healthcare, but do so for less.
AMDR’s member-companies reprocess (or clean, test, remanufacture and sterilize, among other things) select medical devices labeled by the original manufacturer as for “single use.” For over 10 years, AMDR’s members have been providing America’s hospitals with safe, FDA-regulated, lower-cost and environmentally friendly reprocessed medical devices. Today, AMDRs members serve a majority of U.S. hospitals, including all of the honor roll hospitals as listed by U.S. News & World Report and all of the top 10 heart and heart surgery hospitals in the nation. Reprocessing now saves America’s top notch healthcare facilities nearly a quarter of a billion dollars A YEAR and prevents thousands of tons of medical waste from going to landfills.
We are proud of our record and are confident that more and more healthcare providers will see medical device reprocessing as an obvious answer to the question of how to do more with less. AMDR looks forward to reading the expert analysis provided by the lawyers of Squire, Sanders, & Dempsey and highlighting other solution providers in the healthcare sector.
So check back often. We’re interested in your comments and your ideas to improve healthcare delivery in an increasingly cost-conscious world.