New Help With Addressing Low-Income Patients’ Social Services Needs?
One of the long-time barriers to states and hospitals addressing low-income patients’ social services needs and the social determinants of health has been a lack of resources for such assistance. Medicaid, in particular, has not been a financial participant in [...]
Could Value-Based Pay Jeopardize Care for Low-Income Patients?
Physicians who serve large numbers of low-income patients are more likely to incur penalties under Medicare value-based purchasing programs. So concludes a new study in Annals of Internal Medicine. According to the report, Performance differences between practices serving higher- and [...]
The Battle Over 340B
Hospitals and other health care providers say it is an essential tool in ensuring access to care, and to prescription drugs, for their low-income patients. Pharmaceutical companies say it has expanded beyond its original purpose and is being used by [...]
Is Readmissions Reduction Program Hurting Some Patients?
A new study suggests that the decline in avoidable hospital readmissions of Medicare patients driven by the federal program’s hospital readmissions reduction program may be harming cardiac patients. According to a new study published in the journal JAMA Cardiology, while [...]
Bill Seeks to Block 340B Cut
Legislation introduced in Congress would block the attempt by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to slash $1.6 billion in annual payments to hospitals for prescription drugs for outpatients prescribed through the federal section 340B prescription drug discount program. [...]
CMS Guidance on MCO Payments is Good News for Safety-net Hospitals
New guidance from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on the use of directing supplemental Medicaid resources to hospitals through Medicaid managed care organizations is good news for many private safety-net hospitals across the country. In many states, new [...]
Medicaid Retroactive Eligibility: A Dying Policy?
A growing number of states are ending or limiting retroactive eligibility for Medicaid: the practice of Medicaid reimbursing providers for the care they deliver to Medicaid-eligible patients for up to three months even if those patients had not previously enrolled [...]
Administration Moving Away From Value Pay?
First, new Medicare programs for lump-sums payments for cardiac care and joint replacements were scaled back. Then, additional doctors were exempted from a new payment system that would have paid them more for the results they produce than for the [...]
GAO Urges Medicare Action on Opioids
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is not doing enough to oversee the prescribing of opioids to Medicare beneficiaries. Or so concludes the U.S. Government Accountability Office. According to the GAO, CMS provides guidance to Medicare drug plans “…but [...]
Hospitals Improving on Medicare Value-Based Measures
U.S. hospitals continue to improve their performance under Medicare’s value-based purchasing program. In FY 2018, 57 percent of hospitals will receive Medicare bonuses from the program, up from 55 percent in FY 2017. Bonuses are generally small but for some [...]
