MedPAC Meets
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, which advises Congress on Medicare payment issues, met last week in Washington, D.C. Among the issues on MedPAC’s agenda were: paying for sequential stays in a unified Medicare payment system for post-acute care encouraging Medicare [...]
New Bill Proposes Greater 340B Accountability
A new bill proposed last week by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) seeks to foster greater accountability among participants in the federal government’s section 340B prescription drug discount program. The three-page bill is called the Ensuring the Value of the 340B [...]
Lay Outreach Workers Reduce Readmissions
A community hospital in Kentucky has found that employing lay outreach workers to assist patients recently discharged from the hospital can significantly reduce hospital readmissions. In a research project, the hospital identified high-risk patients and, upon their discharge from the [...]
States Adopt New Tools to Control Rising Medicaid Drug Costs
Faced with continued increases in the cost of prescription drugs in their Medicaid programs, states are pursuing new approaches in attempts to control those rising costs. In the past states have employed approaches such as beneficiary prescription limits, negotiating supplemental [...]
Community Health Center Patients Often Have Housing Problems
Nearly half of the patients served by community health centers have housing problems, according to a new report published by the Journal of the American Medical Association. Among those problems: two or more homes in the past year alone, difficulty [...]
Chronic Care Program Shows Early Encouraging Results
Medicare’s chronic care management program appears to be reducing the cost of caring for participants while improving their quality of life. The program, which pays physicians for non-face-to-face services they provided to coordinate care for their Medicare patients with at [...]
Administration Slows Movement Toward Medicare Quality Payments
The Trump administration is slowing Medicare’s movement toward making greater use of quality in its payment system. The Obama administration’s goal of having 50 percent of Medicare payments made through a quality or alternative payment model by the end of [...]
Senators Push IRS on Non-Profit Compliance
Two prominent senators have written to the Internal Revenue Service seeking information about what the agency is doing to ensure that non-profit hospitals comply with the requirements for providing sufficient community benefits to justify their tax-exempt status. Senators Orrin Hatch [...]
Lowering Prescription Drug Costs
Shifting Medicare Part B drug coverage into Medicare Part D. Reducing Medicare Part D co-pays for generic drugs. Increasing the number of pharmacy benefit managers. Establishing expedited review for new versions of brand-name drugs. Tying U.S. drug prices to prices [...]
Medicaid Changes: More Than Just Work Requirements Coming?
While the green light for state applications to impose work requirements on their Medicaid recipients is receiving all of the attention, the Trump administration has issued guidance that appears to pave the way for other major changes in the Medicaid [...]
