CMS Proposes Changes in Medicare ACO Benchmarking
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has proposed a major change in how performance benchmarking is done for participants in its Medicare shared savings program. According to a CMS news release announcing the newly proposed regulation that includes this [...]
New Medicaid Regulation Clarifies Access to Home Health Services
Under a new regulation unveiled by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, physicians and other authorized providers now must document their face-to-face encounters with patients when they are authorizing home health services but those encounters can be conducted through [...]
Feds Issue Guidance on Reducing Medicare Readmissions
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has issued a new report advising hospitals how to reduce readmissions among their racially and ethnically diverse Medicare patients. According to a CMS news release, the guidance …is designed to assist hospital leaders [...]
Challenges In Determining Effectiveness of Dual-Eligible Programs
The federal government is encountering challenges in evaluating the effectiveness of programs designed to serve low-income elderly patients served by both Medicare and Medicaid – patients known as dual-eligibles. Or so concludes the U.S. Government Accountability Office in a new [...]
Report on Social Risk Factors in Medicare Payments
As Medicare continues to move toward making provider payments based on patient outcomes rather than services provided, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has issued a new report on the potential impact of socio-economic factors on those patient [...]
New Medicaid Enrollees Cost Less to Serve
Contrary to fears that the long-time uninsured who became eligible for Medicaid under Affordable Care Act eligibility expansion would turn to providers with a long litany of expensive-to-treat medical problems, preliminary data suggests that such individuals are actually less costly [...]
NAUH Urges MedPAC to Reconsider Medicare DSH Proposal
At their December meeting, members of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission discussed the possibility of recommending to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services that Medicare calculate a portion of eligible hospitals’ Medicare disproportionate share hospital payments (Medicare DSH) using [...]
Medicare Expands ACO Participation
121 new organizations will be participating in Medicare accountable care organization programs, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced this week. 100 new ACOs will join the 150 already participating in the Medicare Shared Savings Program, which rewards organizations [...]
Helping the Homeless May Reduce Health Care Costs
A new study has found that providing housing to homeless people may reduce health care costs. The study, undertaken in Oregon between 2010 and 2014, found that providing housing to homeless people reduced their health care costs, mostly by reducing [...]
CMS Demonstration to Tie Medical, Service Needs
A new federal demonstration program will attempt to help low-income Medicare and Medicaid recipients gain access to services that ultimately will improve their health. The Accountable Health Communities project, developed by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation and launched [...]
