Which part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act / Healthcare Reform / Obamacare will have the largest impact on innovation?
According the Innova Health System CEO J. Knox Singleton, PPACA’s implementation of Diagnosis Related Group-based reimbursement (rather than cost-plus reimbursement) will shift incentives from one in which healthcare deliverers are incentivized to provide additional, potentially unnecessary interventions, to one in which deliverers are incentivized to provide as fewer interventions, potentially withholding necessary ones.
It is not clear which system is better — both options can be deleterious of abused and may be beneficial if properly administered. Perhaps more importantly, it promises to bring new technologies and delivery paradigms to the practice of medicine.