Medicaid Directors Set 2017 Legislative Priorities
The National Association of Medicaid Directors has published its legislative priorities for 2017. Those 13 priorities, and the manner in which the group hopes to achieve them, are: Implement requirements for advance review of federal regulations and guidance by state [...]
Medicaid Directors Set Goals for First 100 Days
The National Association of Medicaid Directors has published a paper detailing its objectives for its interaction with the Trump administration during that administration’s first 100 days in office. We call upon the new Administration to convene with NAMD’s Board of [...]
New Study: Social Risk Factors Affect Provider Performance and Patient Outcomes
Medicare patients with social risk factors fare worse than others in programs that measure quality and the providers that serve them also perform worse than others on quality measures. This news comes from a new report presented to Congress by [...]
Feds Launch Medicare-Medicaid ACO Model
The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation has announced a new Medicare-Medicaid Accountable Care Organization Model that it says …is focused on improving quality of care and reducing costs for Medicare-Medicaid enrollees. The MMACO Model builds on the Medicare Shared [...]
Uninsured Patients, Provider Taxes Hurt Adequacy of Medicaid Payments
While Medicaid payments now typically cover more than the cost of Medicaid services in many states, they do not cover the costs of caring for low-income patients after providers care for uninsured patients and pay Medicaid provider taxes, a new [...]
“Cures” Bill Gives NAUH Legislative Victory
The new 21st Century Cures Act includes something private safety-net hospitals have long advocated: socio-economic risk adjustment of Medicare’s hospital readmissions reduction program. NAUH has been urging Congress and the administration to introduce such a risk-adjustment component ever since the [...]
New Approach to Helping Patients With Complex Needs
Five foundations have joined forces to pursue new approaches to serving patients with complex medical needs. The Commonwealth Fund, the John A. Hartford Foundation, the Peterson Center on Healthcare, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and The SCAN Foundation engaged the [...]
MedPAC Talks Payments
At public meetings in Washington, D.C. last week, members of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission discussed the adequacy of current Medicare payments and whether they need updating in the next fiscal year. Among the payment areas MedPAC reviewed were inpatient [...]
A Look at Medicaid’s Immediate Future
With a new president taking office in January who vows to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, it is not clear what will happen to Medicaid, which currently covers 73 million Americans. A new paper from the Kaiser Family [...]
Medicaid Supplemental Payments Set to Evolve
New health care delivery and reimbursement systems and new federal regulations will result in changes in how states deploy their Medicaid resources through supplemental payments in the coming years. A new Commonwealth Fund report describes the kinds of supplemental Medicaid [...]

