Members of Congress Seek Increased Medicare Rates
Members of Congress have written to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) acting administrator Andrew Slavitt asking him to reconsider his agency’s proposal to reduce the rates Medicare will pay providers for outpatient services. In July, CMS proposed reducing [...]
NAUH Comments to Ways and Means Committee on Indirect Medical Education Bill
At the request of the Health Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee, the National Association of Urban Hospitals has written to the committee to convey its views on H.R. 3292, the Medicare IME Pool Act of 2015. In [...]
GAO Questions Impact of Medicare Value-Based Purchasing Program
Medicare’s value-based purchasing program may not be having much of an impact on the quality of care hospitals provide, according to a new report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. According to a GAO summary of its report Hospital Value-Based [...]
Study Considers How Best to Prevent Readmissions
A five-year study performed by researchers from the Yale School of Public Health has found that while many hospitals have successfully reduced the rate of readmission for their Medicare patients, few specific strategies have emerged as best practices for tackling [...]
Hospitals, Especially Safety-Net Hospitals, Struggle With Heart Failure Readmissions
For all the emphasis on reducing readmissions to hospitals, providers continue to struggle to prevent readmissions of patients suffering heart failure. Or so concludes a new study published in the Journal of Cardiac Failure. According to the study, there has [...]
Court Rebuffs HHS on Two-Midnight Rule Pay Cut
A federal court has told the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that it will have to do more to justify a 0.2 percent cut in inpatient payment rates that is part of the controversial Medicare two-midnight rule. The [...]
Better Medicaid Data Needed, Governors Say
States need better data to meet the needs of Medicaid recipients with complex medical needs, according to the National Governors Association (NGA). One of the biggest costs in state Medicaid programs is “super-utilizers”: patients who consume a significant amount of [...]
NAUH Talks Medicare DSH With Congressional Committee
Last week representatives of the National Association of Urban Hospitals (NAUH) met with staff of the House Ways and Means Committee’s Health Subcommittee to offer the association’s views on H.R. 3288, the Strengthening DSH and Medicare Through Subsidy Recapture and [...]
Medicare Readmissions Program Unfair to Safety-Net Hospitals, Study Finds
Medicare’s readmissions reduction program penalizes hospitals based largely on the patients they serve rather than their performance serving them, a new study has concluded. According to the report “Patient Characteristics and Differences in Hospital Readmission Rates,” published in the journal [...]
MedPAC Looks at Various Issues at September Public Meeting
The independent federal agency that advises Congress on Medicare payment issues held its monthly public meeting in Washington, D.C. During the two days of meetings, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) discussed its work on six specific issues: developing a [...]
