Today we get a follow-up to last month’s rather vague promise from a kitchen sink of health-care players to slow the rise of costs in the coming decade. Here’s today’s letter from (deep breath) AHIP, the AMA, the American Hospital Association, AdvaMed, PhRMA and SEIU. It’s the latest sign that, in public at least, everybody’s still on board with this whole health-reform thing. The letter starts out with an overview of the familiar stuff they all agree on — better management of chronic diseases, streamlining insurance claims, that sort of thing — then gets into specific proposals from each group. A

sampling: AHIP , the health insurance trade group, calls for standardizing and automating a bunch of basic insurance functions, including “claims submissions, eligibility, claims status, payment, and remittance.” The AMA points to measures it is working on that could control overuse of certain medical procedures, including surgery for back pain, diagnostic imaging and stenting for stable coronary disease. SEIU , a union that includes many health-care workers, argues for shifting funding to allow more patients to be cared for at home rather than in nursing homes.

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Health Cost Control: Docs, Hospitals, Insurers, Labor & Industry