Mr. Nichols Goes to Washington
Len Nichols, director of the Center for Health Policy Research and Ethics of the College of Health and Human Services at George Mason University, has been selected by the federal government to participate in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Innovation Advisors Program. “The Innovation Advisors Program is part of a larger effort by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to basically engender change in the health care delivery system,” said Nichols, who was selected alongside 72 other applicants from around the nation. There is widespread recognition that America has to spend less on health care, or at least slow the rate of growth costs, Nichols said. Nichols, who is an economist, says that the best way to reduce health care spending is not price or benefit cuts, but rather through incentive realignment. Essentially, there has to be a link connecting the self-interest of clinicians and people who run hospitals to the social interest of reducing cost and improving patient care, Nichols said. The program essentially infuses the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services with outside ideas, and the overall goal is to make the health care system sustainable and affordable. However Nichols is unique when compared to […]
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