Steve Calvin

Alice Callahan is an excellent health care journalist based in Oregon. Last year she wrote a New York Times article on birth centers that included our work at the Minnesota Birth Center. Recently she wrote another online article that is worth reading: https://undark.org/article/midwives-birth-centers/

Maternity care improvement is getting attention. Later this week I will be on a panel at the 2019 American Congress of OB/GYNs (ACOG). The panel is titled “Redesigning Maternity Care: One size does not fit all”. I will provide a summary on a subsequent post. I am encouraged by the interest in our work. All I along I have been convinced that health care reform should start where we all did, with pregnancy and birth.

It has too long since my last post.  On Tuesday this week I will participate on a panel at the Lown Institute 2018 conference in Washington, D.C.   http://conference.lowninstitute.org/sessions/breakout-session-getting-maternity-care-right-women-newborns/   I look forward to interacting with the others on the panel who are doing excellent work in improving maternity and newborn care.  All mothers and newborns, including those covered by Medicaid, deserve to have access to great maternity care that supports physiologic birth.   Care for nearly 50% of mothers and babies each year is covered by Medicaid so this is a very important topic.  Stay tuned for a follow up post.

It has been a long while since I posted anything here.  We have been busy putting together a proposal to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) encouraging them to pay for perinatal care as a single payment for the 70% of mothers who are low-risk.  Our BirthBundle® proposal is open for public comments for another two weeks.  A group of experts will be assessing our proposal and reaching a decision by the end of the year.  If you have time please read it and comment.  The link is at: https://aspe.hhs.gov/documents-public-comment-physician-focused-payment-model-technical-advisory-committee

 

The Minnesota Health Action Group (MNHAG) brings together employers, payers and providers to find innovative patient-focused solutions to the many problems in our current healthcare system. A couple of years ago Carolyn Pare, MNHAG Executive Director, invited us to be part of the organization’s comprehensive study of the maternity care system in Minnesota.   A great deal of good came from that effort.   Today we were invited to address the MNHAG 9th Employer Leadership Summit on the topic of bundled payment for maternity care.   My colleague Tricia Balazovic, who keeps the Minnesota Birth operating and who is a major developer of the BirthBundle, is joining me in presenting the compelling case for improving care by bundling payment.  The program brochure is at: http://mnhealthactiongroup.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/2016Agenda_Print_FINAL.pdf

 

 

Neel Shah is a very smart young OB/GYN who really understands the issues.  Take a look at this video:

http://www.greatbigstory.com/stories/the-c-section-detective-dr-neel-shah-tries-to-solve-a-growing-problem

Neel and his colleagues at www.ariadnelabs.org are doing some great research on maternity and newborn care models and their design.  He will likely be studying what we are up to here at the Minnesota Birth Center.  Stay tuned.