Medicare Joint Replacement Program Produces Savings
The first reporting period for Medicare’s Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement Model found that participating providers cut costs for episodes of care by more than $900, or 3.3 percent. Most of the savings, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services [...]
Low-Acuity Use of Emergency Departments Declines
People are using hospital emergency departments less frequently for low-acuity medical problems, turning instead to retail clinics and urgent care. According to a new study of a limited patient population published in JAMA Internal Medicine, Visits to the ED for [...]
Congress Asks MedPAC to Look at Hospital Consolidation
The House Energy and Commerce Committee has asked the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission to examine the impact of hospital consolidation on patients and federal health care spending. In a letter signed by Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Greg Walden (R-OR), [...]
Ways and Means Releases Red Tape Report
The House Ways and Means Committee has released a report detailing its efforts to date to reduce red tape in the delivery of health care and to present steps it might take in the future to continue with that process. [...]
CMS Reinforces Need for Budget Neutrality in Medicaid Waivers
States that seek federal waivers for permission to employ new approaches to serving their Medicaid population will have to pass more rigorous tests to ensure that those new approaches are budget-neutral, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has announced. [...]
Medicaid Expansion Helping Diabetics
The Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion has led to a 40 percent increase in the number of prescriptions for diabetes medicine filled in the 30 states that expanded their Medicaid programs. Meanwhile, there was no change in the number of [...]
Medicare Announces FY 2019 Inpatient Payments
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has released its FY 2019 payment schedule for Medicare inpatient services. Highlights of the FY 2019 inpatient prospective payment system regulation include: A 1.75 percent increase in fee-for-service rates. A $1.5 billion increase [...]
Battle Over Medicaid Work Requirements Not Over
The Secretary of Health and Human Services is not accepting a recent federal court ruling as the final word on Medicaid work requirements. Although the court ruled against a federally approved plan to permit the state of Kentucky to implement [...]
GAO Looks at Medicaid Managed Care Spending
The federal government should do more to help states ensure the accuracy and integrity of their payments to Medicaid managed care organizations and the payments those Medicaid managed care organizations make to health care providers. This is the conclusion reached [...]
New Reg Pushes Medicare Toward Site-Neutral Outpatient Payments
Medicare would make more payments for outpatient services on a site-neutral basis under a newly proposed regulation just released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The 2019 Medicare outpatient prospective payment system regulation, published in proposal form, calls [...]
