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An estimated 72,315 American health care providers and suppliers — from hospitals and nursing homes to dialysis facilities and care homes for those with intellectual disabilities — will have a little over a year to meet federal disaster preparedness requirements completed this week by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The new rule is aimed at preventing the severe breakdown in patient care that followed disasters including Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sandy, while also strengthening the ability to provide services during other types of emergencies, such as pandemics and terrorist attacks. (Fink, 9/9)

[Dr. Lorraine Page is] one of a growing number of doctors who have cut loose from what she calls the “assembly-line, volume approach” that most of her colleagues have experienced. These breakaway docs are now using a health care delivery model called direct primary care. Page has cut back on the number of patients she sees, and spends more time with the ones she does. She doesn’t take insurance and deals mostly in cash. Page charges each time she sees a patient, but most direct primary care doctors bill a monthly fee for unlimited visits. (Gorn, 9/11)

Hawaii’s largest health insurer is plowing ahead with an ambitious plan to dramatically overhaul the way primary care doctors are paid — by giving them a monthly per patient fee. The Hawaii Medical Service Association, which covers more than half of the state’s 1.4 million residents, in January will start paying physicians a standard monthly rate per patient. It's part of health care industry’s effort — with encouragement from the Obama administration — to move away from a fee-for-service system that payers say encourages overtreatment and overspending. (Ehley, 9/9)