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 [...]
340B on the Move?
Consider moving the section 340B prescription drug discount program from the Health Resources and Services Administration to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. That was the message in a recent letter from Senate Finance Committee chairman Orrin Hatch to [...]
A New Wave of Medicaid Expansion?
Spurred by the Trump administration’s invitation to states to apply for approval to make work requirements a part of their Medicaid program, a number of states that spurned the opportunity created for expansion under the Affordable Care Act may consider [...]
MACPAC Meets
The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission met last week in Washington, D.C. to discuss a variety of Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program issues. MACPAC, the non-partisan legislative branch agency that performs policy and data analysis and makes [...]
NAUH Asks Congressional Leaders to Delay Medicaid DSH Cut
Delay cuts in Medicaid disproportionate share (Medicaid DSH) allotments to states, NAUH has asked congressional leaders. Medicaid DSH payments, which help private safety-net hospitals with the cost of caring for their low-income and uninsured patients, were slated for cuts under [...]
ACA Improves Access to Surgical Services
The Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion has improved access to surgical services for Medicaid patients. Or so says a new study published in JAMA Surgery, which reports that In this study of patients with 1 of 5 common surgical conditions, [...]
