CMS Publishes Proposed FY 2019 Inpatient PPS Regulation
Last week the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services published a proposal detailing how it envisions paying for Medicare services in FY 2019 under its inpatient prospective payment system. The following are the proposed rule’s highlights: A 1.75 percent proposed [...]
Short-Term Plans May Short-Change Purchasers
The short-term health insurance plans that the administration proposes making more available to consumers as an alternative to comprehensive health insurance that meets Affordable Care Act coverage requirements may leave consumers with greater out-of-pocket costs and less coverage for some [...]
MACPAC Meets
The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission, a non-partisan legislative branch agency that advises Congress, the administration, and the states on Medicaid and CHIP issues, met publicly in Washington, D.C. last week. The following is MACPAC’s own summary of [...]
ACA Has Increased Primary Care Utilization
A new study found that the increase in the number of insured Americans as a result of the Affordable Care Act has resulted in increased utilization of primary health care services. According to a study by the National Bureau of [...]
MedPAC Meets
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission met last week in Washington, D.C. to address a number of Medicare reimbursement-related issues. Among the subjects on MedPAC’s agenda were: using payments to ensure appropriate access to and use of hospital emergency department services [...]
Medicaid is Toughest Insurer for Providers
Medicaid is the hardest insurer for providers when it comes to billing. Or so reports a new study published in the journal Health Affairs. According to this analysis, Medicaid claims take longer to file, are more likely to be rejected, [...]
Eat! You’ll Feel Better
And maybe need to spend less on health care. That is the lesson learned from a program in Massachusetts that provided home delivery of food to dually eligible Medicare/Medicaid recipients who were struggling with their meals. In a limited experiment, [...]
Safety-Net Hospitals Improve More on Readmissions But Still More Likely to be Penalized
Hospitals that serve large numbers of minority patients are reducing their Medicare readmissions rates more than other hospitals but are still more likely to be penalized under Medicare readmissions reduction program. This is one of the findings in a new [...]
Tackling Social Determinants of Health
The growing awareness of the impact of social determinants of health comes at a time when health care providers are assuming unprecedented degrees of risk for the health of their patients, leaving many providers wondering how best to invest resources [...]
340B Program Getting the Job Done
The oft-scrutinized section 340B prescription drug discount program is doing what the program is supposed to do, according to a new analysis published on the Health Affairs Blog. According to the report, 340B DSHs treat significantly more low-income patients than [...]
