Hospitals, Non-Profit Status, and Community Benefit
For years debate has raged over what non-profit hospitals must do to retain that non-profit status. That debate has gone from a general concept of what constitutes “community benefit” to local government challenges to the non-profit status of hospitals based [...]
Hospitals Not Using Observation Status to Avoid Readmissions Penalties
Hospitals are not moving returning patients to observation status to avoid incurring financial penalties under Medicare’s hospital readmissions reduction program, according to new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Since that program’s inception, more than 3300 hospitals have [...]
Do Return ER Visits Yield Better Outcomes?
Patients who visit hospital emergency rooms for care, return home, and then return to the ER within 30 days have better outcomes than those who are admitted to the hospital from the ER. And their care costs less as well. [...]
Cutting ER Visits: Harder Than Expected
The first two years of major expansion of access to health insurance under the Affordable Care Act did not produce the significant reduction in hospital ER visits that many expected. Or so reports a new study from the Centers for [...]
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 [...]
