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The Minuteman plan would streamline billing processes to save on administrative costs and allow providers to work more closely with employers, organizers said. Information about smoking cessation or workers’ weight collected through employer wellness programs is not typically shared with doctors. “Imagine working closely with an employer who can help us gather data and, with employees’ permission, to be able to share that data with their primary care providers,” said Dr. Jeff Lasker, chief executive of the Tufts physician group, New England Quality Care Alliance.

Partners HealthCare last year announced plans to acquire Neighborhood Health Plan, which mostly serves low-income people. Steward Health Care has worked with Fallon Community Health Plan to develop plans offered at reduced prices through a small business cooperative created by the Retailers Association of Massachusetts.

Consumers, meanwhile, who are paying a greater share of the cost, are making spending adjustments.  Many are delaying care, using fewer services and choosing less expensive options such as retail clinics, urgent care centers and mobile health devices.

“Healthcare cost increases continue to exceed overall growth in wages, but the gap appears to be shrinking.  The long-term trends suggest that as the economy improves, the cycle of runaway cost increases will be broken,” said Michael Thompson, principal with PwC’s human resource services practice.  “This is critical as employers strategically reevaluate the role of healthcare benefits to their organizations and step up efforts to engage employees more directly in value-based healthcare decision making.”

But the ACA does little to address fragmentation, quality of care, and the sustainability of the financial model for U.S. health care — ho

At the foundation of our approach is a knowledge-management system — an electronic archive of Mayo Clinic-vetted knowledge containing evidence-based protocols, order sets, alerts and care process models

It is alarming to see more than a two-fold variation in health care quality across the country.