Tracking Medicare Disparities
Tracking disparities in medical conditions and outcomes will be easier with the help of a new “Mapping Medicare Disparities Tool” created by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Office of Minority Health. The new disparities tool identifies disparities in [...]
Beware Medicaid Block Grants, Analysis Suggests
When the federal government turns housing, health, and social services programs into block grants, funding for such programs erodes over time, according to a new analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The study found that Policymakers advancing [...]
Traditional vs. Section 1115 Medicaid Expansion
While most states that took advantage of the Affordable Care Act to expand their Medicaid programs did so simply by expanding the population eligible to participate in the program, some expanded through the use of what are known as section [...]
States Seeking Job Search as Condition for Medicaid Expansion
A number of states that have resisted expanding their Medicaid programs are now attempting to do so by linking expansion to requiring new participants to enroll in job search and training programs. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which [...]
Socio-Economic Factors Again Tied to Hospital Readmissions
Another study has linked socio-economic factors to increased hospital readmissions. This latest study, published in the Journal for Healthcare Quality, found that … meaningful risk-adjusted readmission rates can be tracked in a dynamic database. The clinical conditions responsible for the [...]
MedPAC Offers DSH, 340B Recommendations
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission has recommended that Congress direct changes in the 340B prescription drug discount program and in the manner in which Medicare makes disproportionate share hospital payments (Medicare DSH). In its annual report to Congress, MedPAC recommended [...]
MACPAC Unhappy With How DSH is Dished
Medicaid disproportionate share hospital payments (Medicaid DSH) are not getting to the hospitals that need them most, according to the independent agency that advises Congress and the administration on Medicaid access, payment, and care delivery issues. In its March 2016 Report [...]
Hospitals Failing to Prevent Avoidable Readmissions
Hospitals continue to fail to prevent many avoidable readmissions, a new study in JAMA Internal Medicine has concluded. Among the causes? Patients who shouldn’t have been admitted through the ER in the first place, post-discharge instructions written at too high [...]
IOM Weighs in on Social Determinants Training
If patients’ symptoms and conditions are the product of who they are, where they are from, and how they have lived, can better understanding those circumstances help providers serve those patients more effectively? Increasingly the answer to that question has [...]
Medicare Hits Payment Target
Medicare has achieved its goal of tying 30 percent of all Medicare payments to alternative payment models a year early, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has announced. As of January of 2016, 30 percent of Medicare payments are [...]
