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 [...]
CMS Proposes Easing Medicaid Access Requirement
Under a new regulation proposed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, some states would no longer need to analyze access to care for their Medicaid population. In a newly proposed regulation, CMS calls for eliminating the need for [...]
Court Rebuffs CMS on Medicaid DSH
A federal court has rejected the manner in which the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services collects certain Medicaid data from states in a ruling that has potential implications for eligible hospitals’ Medicaid disproportionate share hospital payments (Medicaid DSH). In [...]
