Medicare Payment Rule FY 2015: Inpatient Rates to Rise 1.4 Percent
Medicare inpatient rates will increase 1.4 percent in FY 2015. But the already-shrinking Medicare disproportionate share (Medicare DSH) pool will be $900 million smaller than proposed in April. These and other payment policies were included in the recently unveiled Medicare [...]
GAO Questions State Medicaid Financing
States are now financing more than a quarter of their share of Medicaid expenditures with money from sources other than state general funds, according to a new study by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). According to the GAO, 26 percent [...]
IOM Releases Graduate Medical Education Report
‘’…there is an unquestionable imperative to assess and optimize the effectiveness of the public’s investment in GME (graduate medical education).” So says the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in its new report Graduate Medical Education That Meets the Nation’s Health Needs. [...]
Group to Assess Impact of Social Determinants of Health on Care
The National Quality Forum (NQF) will perform a “robust trial” to assess the role and impact of sociodemographic factors on health care outcomes. In a news release, the NQF announced that Sociodemographic factors can be socioeconomic, e.g., income, education, and [...]
Congressman Rallies Support for Medicare Readmissions Bill
Congressman James Renacci has put out a call to his fellow House members to support H.R. 4188, the Establishing Beneficiary Equity in the Hospital Readmissions Program Act. The bill seeks to improve Medicare’s hospital readmissions reduction program, which penalizes hospitals [...]
GAO Compares Medicaid, Private Insurance Rates
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has completed a new study that compares how physicians are paid by Medicaid (both fee-for-service (FFS) and managed care plans) and private insurers. Looking at payments for 26 different physician evaluation and management (E&M), [...]
CMS Seeks to Jump-Start Medicaid Innovation
A new federal program seeks to encourage states to work faster to find ways to improve care and improve the health of their Medicaid patients and to reduce health care costs through payment and service delivery reforms. The Center for [...]
Uninsured Rate Falls
The number of uninsured Americans is falling, according to a new survey taken by the Commonwealth Fund. As the foundation reports, The uninsured rate for people ages 19 to 64 declined from 20 percent in the July-to-September 2013 period to 15 [...]
Foundation to Track Effect of ACA on Hospitals
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has launched a project to measure the impact of the Affordable Care Act on hospitals. Working with 24 state hospital associations, the foundation’s Hospital ACA Monitoring Project will collect quarterly hospital data on admissions, emergency [...]
Medicare to Add Services to Telehealth Program
Medicare would add new telehealth services to those for which it already pays providers under a newly proposed regulation. The new telehealth services that would be eligible for Medicare payment to physicians are annual wellness visits, psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, and prolonged [...]
