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 [...]
Report on Health Care Regulations Subject to Review
Under limited circumstances, Congress may employ a rarely used process to overturn rules and regulations issued by federal agencies. In a new report, the Congressional Research Service describes how this process works and lists regulations that could be subject to [...]
Profile of Nominee to Head CMS
President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Seema Verma, a health care consultant, to serve as administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. That agency runs the Medicare and Medicaid programs. In this capacity she would have enormous influence on [...]
Social Determinants and Health Care
Amid growing recognition that social factors play at least much a role in the health of communities as medical care, growing attention is being paid to how best to address those social determinants in a health care system. With increasing [...]
