The Challenges Medicaid Faces
As it celebrates is fiftieth birthday, Medicaid now covers 70 million Americans at a cost of $500 billion a year. As the program continues to grow amid the expansion facilitated by the Affordable Care Act, Kaiser Health News has identified [...]
GAO Looks at Behavioral Health Options
Access to behavioral health services can be a challenge for low-income adults, so the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently looked into those challenges. In a new report, the GAO examined how many low-income adults have behavioral health problems, where [...]
Graduate Medical Education: Boon or Bane for Hospitals’ Bottom Line?
Do hospitals make money on graduate medical education? Do they lose money subsidizing positions above and beyond the funding they receive for completing the training of the next generation of doctors? Are there other benefits hospitals reap from medical education [...]
Will Growing Medicaid Costs Swamp State Budgets?
Many states that expanded their Medicaid programs under the Affordable Care Act have experienced far greater increases in enrollment than projected and are now worried about their future ability to pay for the increased costs associated with that greater enrollment. [...]
South Carolina Hospitals Reduce Readmissions
A state-wide effort among South Carolina hospitals has reduced readmissions in that state. With most of the state’s hospitals participating, the Preventing Avoidable Readmissions Together program (PART) used multi-disciplinary rounds, post-discharge phone calls, teach-back, better discharge summaries, and timely follow-up [...]
What’s Next for Medicaid Expansion?
With the Obama administration’s victory in the King v. Burwell challenge, attention again turns to Medicaid expansion in the states, where 21 states have yet to expand their Medicaid programs as authorized by the Affordable Care Act. Two of those [...]
GAO Identifies Medicaid Challenges
As Medicaid marks its 50th anniversary, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) testified recently before the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Health Subcommittee on the major challenges facing the program. GAO’s testimony focused on four major issues: access to care [...]
Medicaid Highlighted in Latest Health Affairs
The journal Health Affairs has dedicated its July 2015 edition to “Medicaid’s Evolving Delivery Systems.” The edition includes the following articles about different aspects of Medicaid: “Medicaid’s Growing Role in Care Delivery” Once a Welfare Add-On, Medicaid Takes Charge in [...]
GAO Reports on 340B Program
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently completed a review of the federal 340B Drug Pricing Program. The program, which requires pharmaceutical companies to provide drug discounts to qualified hospitals that serve especially large proportions of low-income patients, has come [...]
Medicaid Cost-Sharing Re-Emerges
States are beginning to look anew at imposing cost-sharing requirements on their Medicaid population. Indiana now requires Medicaid recipients to contribute to health savings accounts, Arkansas and Iowa have cost-sharing requirements, and Arizona, Ohio, and Utah are considering introducing cost-sharing. [...]
