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 [...]
GAO Looks at Supplemental Medicaid Payments
Following up its own 2012 report that identified more than 500 hospitals receiving supplemental Medicaid payments that resulted in Medicaid payment surpluses, the U.S. Government Accountability Office has taken a broader look at supplemental payments state Medicaid programs make to [...]
MedPAC Meets, Considers Issues
Members of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) met last week in Washington, D.C. to discuss policies and potential recommendations to Congress on a number of Medicare payment issues. Among the issues on the agenda were: developing a unified payment [...]
MedPAC Sees Room for More Telehealth
“If we are going to be relevant to the customers who will age into Medicare one day, we need to be offering these kinds of alternatives.” That alternative is telehealth services and the statement came from a member of the [...]
New Study Links Health, Housing
Low-income people with affordable housing are healthier than those who lack affordable housing. Or so concludes a new report from the Center for Outcomes Research and Education. According to the organization, its study is …one of the first studies to [...]
Improving Insurance Enrollment for Legal Immigrants
While the Affordable Care Act has led to impressive increases in the number of Americans with health insurance, the current enrollment poses a number of challenges for legal immigrants: those in the U.S. legally who lack insurance and are qualified [...]
