Medicaid Implications of the President’s FY 2017 Proposed Budget
The National Association of Medicaid Directors has published a detailed memo outlining how President Obama’s proposed FY 2017 would affect Medicaid. See that memo here.
NAUH Reiterates Call for Readmissions Program Risk Adjustment
In a letter to the chairmen of the House Ways and Means Committee and its Health Committee, the National Association of Urban Hospitals has again called on Congress to pass legislation requiring Medicare to add risk adjustment to its hospital [...]
Report on the State of Urban Health Care
Kaiser Health News has published a five-part report on the challenges facing urban health care providers in the nation’s cities. Many private safety-net hospitals are located in urban areas. The Kaiser report, “Special Report, Baltimore’s Other Divide,” consists of five [...]
NAUH Weighs in on New Medicare Site-Neutral Payment Law
Last November Congress passed a law that established a new, site-neutral Medicare payment policy for newly acquired, provider-based, off-campus outpatient departments. In response to protests about the new law, the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Health Subcommittee invited the provider [...]
GAO Suggests Changes in Federal Medicaid Funding Formula
The U.S. Government Accountability Office has recommended changes in how the federal government matches state Medicaid funding for its share of overall Medicaid spending. In testimony submitted to the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Health Subcommittee, GAO reminded Congress that [...]
DSH/340B Hospitals Have Lower Medicare Drug Costs
Medicare disproportionate share (Medicare DSH) hospitals that qualify for the federal 340B prescription drug discount program have lower Medicare Part B drug costs than other Medicare providers. So concludes a new study performed for 340B Health, an association that represents [...]
Court to Hear RAC Audit Suit
A federal appeals court has overturned a lower court decision and ordered that court to consider a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services over its nearly two-year backlog in hearing appeals of Medicare Recovery Audit Contractor [...]
President Proposes FY 2017 Budget
That budget proposal calls for numerous cuts in Medicare payments to hospitals, including significant reductions in Medicare bad debt reimbursement, medical education payments, and payments for inpatient rehabilitation services. It also calls for restoring the Medicaid primary care payment increase [...]
Congress Open to Revisiting Medicare Site-Neutral Outpatient Payments?
Conceding that Congress “…has received a large amount of feedback” since including in a 2015 law a provision that compels Medicare to pay for outpatient care on a site-neutral basis, the House Energy and Commerce Committee and its Health Subcommittee [...]
MACPAC: Medicaid DSH Payments Not Always Reaching Targeted Providers
In many cases, Medicaid disproportionate share payments (Medicaid DSH) are being made to hospitals that do not necessarily serve especially large proportions of Medicaid and other low-income patients. So concludes a new report from The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and [...]
