New Approaches to Readmissions Reduction Program?
While Medicare’s readmissions reduction program has produced a decline in the number of Medicare readmissions within 30 days of discharge, critics – among them the National Association of Urban Hospitals – argue that the program is unfair to hospitals that [...]
Safety-Net Hospitals’ Readmissions Challenge
The March edition of the journal Health Affairs offers a compelling snapshot of a type of patient many private safety-net hospitals serve on an almost daily basis: the “superutilizer” who lacks the ability and resources to address his own medical [...]
Keys to Increasing Medicaid Enrollment
States that have their own health insurance marketplace enroll a higher proportion of Medicaid-eligible residents in their Medicaid programs. And those that rely on the federal marketplace enroll higher proportions of eligible residents in Medicaid if they let the federal [...]
Group Organizes Advocacy in Support of 340B Program
Under pressure from federal regulators and MedPAC, the advocacy group 340B Health is attempting to rally hospital groups behind the 340B prescription drug discount program that requires pharmaceutical companies to provide discounts to qualified hospitals for drugs dispensed on an [...]
Medicaid Expansion Would Help With Behavioral Health
If the 20 states that have not expanded their Medicaid programs were to do so, an estimated 1.9 million Americans with behavioral health problems would have access to care they currently do not receive. This is the conclusion of a [...]
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 [...]
