Risk Adjustment Needed for Joint Replacement Model, Study Says
Medicare’s Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement bundled payment program will penalize hospitals that care for sicker patients unless it is risk-adjusted, according to a new study. The study, published in the journal Health Affairs, is based on an analysis of joint [...]
CMS Posts Tentative List of Essential Community Providers
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has posted on its web site a draft list of essential community providers for 2018. To qualify as essential community providers, organizations must serve predominantly low-income, medically underserved patients. Qualified health plans must contract [...]
Hospital Group Models Risk-Adjusted Medicare Readmissions
The Missouri Hospital Association has published data that demonstrates that risk-adjusting Medicare readmissions based on social determinants of health reduces the readmission rates of hospitals that care for large numbers of low-income patients. The data, modeling, and risk adjustment methodology, [...]
Amid Rising Improper Medicaid Payments, CMS Offers Help
With improper Medicaid payments nearly twice as high as they were just a few years ago, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is reaching out to state Medicaid programs with suggestions for how to reduce those improper payments. The [...]
There’s More to Quality Than Readmissions, Study Suggests
Hospitals with high readmissions rates may also have lower mortality rates for some conditions, according to a new study. The study, published in the Journal of Hospital Medicine, found that patients suffering from heart failure, stroke, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease [...]
NAUH Comments on Proposed Medicare Site-Neutral Outpatient Payment Changes
The National Association of Urban Hospitals has submitted extensive comments to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on the agency’s proposal to implement site-neutral payment policies for Medicare-covered outpatient services. In its comments, NAUH raises objections to: how the [...]
Journal Looks at Health Disparities
The journal Health Affairs looks at health disparities and social determinants of health in its August 2016 issue. The article “Evaluating Strategies For Reducing Health Disparities By Addressing The Social Determinants Of Health” looks at interventions that focus on social [...]
NIH Launches Research on Health Disparities in Disadvantaged Communities
The National Institutes of Health is launching a new Transdisciplinary Collaboratives Centers for Health Disparities Research on Chronic Disease Prevention program that seeks to respond to ...the need for more robust, ecological approaches to address chronic diseases among racial and [...]
Who’s Still Uninsured?
Hispanics. Young people between the ages of 19 and 34. Men. Low-income people, especially those living in states that have not expanded their Medicaid programs. People in the South – again, especially those living in states that have not expanded [...]
Medicare Continues to Grapple With Socio-Economic Risk Adjustment
The question of whether Medicare should consider the socio-economic status of the patients hospitals serve when it judges the effectiveness and quality of care hospitals provide continues to stir discussion and debate in the health care community. The issue arose [...]
