Fewer People Skipping Care for Financial Reasons
Fewer Americans are choosing not to pursue medical care for financial reasons, according to new information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. According to the CDC’s National Health Interview Survey, 4.5 percent of the people surveyed reported not [...]
Homeless Health Care Costs Driven More by Hospital Stays Than ER Visits
Extended hospital stays and not frequent visits to hospital emergency rooms constitute the greatest cost in caring for homeless Medicaid patients, a new analysis has found. A review of 1100 homeless people served by the Boston Health Care for the [...]
A Look at Alternative Medicaid Expansion
While most states expanding their Medicaid programs in response to the opportunity presented by the Affordable Care Act simply expand their existing Medicaid programs, six states have taken a different approach, obtaining Medicaid demonstration waivers so they could tailor their [...]
Are States Gaming New Medicaid Requirement?
Some doctors think so. In a letter to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Physicians, American Medical Association, and American Osteopathic Association suggest that two states have drastically cut their Medicaid [...]
New Report Highlights Benefits of 340B Program
A new report describes how the federal government’s 340B Drug Pricing Program works, how it serves low-income participants, what might happen if the program were curtailed, and why the program remains as important as ever despite the declining number of [...]
Bill Proposes Modifying Ban on Higher Medicare Outpatient Payments
A new bill introduced in the House Ways and Means Committee would limit a recent prohibition on establishing new off-campus hospital outpatient facilities that can receive hospital-based Medicare outpatient payments. Under the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015, new off-campus, hospital-based [...]
Bill Proposes Risk-Adjusting Medicare Readmissions Program
A new bill introduced in the House Ways and Means Committee would apply risk adjustment for socio-economic factors to Medicare’s hospital readmissions reduction program. According to a committee summary of the bill, The Helping Hospitals Improve Patient Care Act of [...]
Socio-Economic Factors Leading Cause in Pediatric Asthma Readmissions
African-American children suffering from asthma are readmitted to hospitals more often than other children primarily because of socio-economic factors, a new study published in JAMA Pediatrics has concluded. In a study conducted in Cincinnati, according to the report, “Socioeconomic hardship [...]
Covered by Medicare But Underinsured
Nearly a quarter of the country’s 50 million Medicare beneficiaries are underinsured and ill-equipped financially to handle the program’s cost-sharing responsibilities. Or so concludes a new report from the Commonwealth Fund. According to the report, Medicare’s cost-sharing requirements – premiums, [...]
Congressional Task Force Considers Medicaid Reforms
A House Energy and Commerce Committee group is looking at potential Medicaid reforms for 2017. The task force, consisting entirely of Republican members, was created late last year to “… strengthen and sustain the critical program for the nation’s most [...]
