No-Hospitalization Group Plans To Be Banned
Companies will no longer be able to provide their employees with group health insurance plans that do not cover inpatient hospitalization. This news came in a recent notice published by the Internal Revenue Service. Recently, many large employers with lower-wage [...]
Suit Against Medicare Rate Cut Continues
Hospital groups are suing the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) over the 0.2 percent rate cut in Medicare inpatient payments during the 2014 fiscal year. According to the hospital groups, CMS failed to provide a rationale for the [...]
MACPAC Not Yet Sold on Continuing Medicaid Primary Care Pay Increase
The independent federal agency that advises Congress on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program is not ready to endorse continuing the Affordable Care Act’s two-year increase in Medicaid primary care fees as a means of encouraging more doctors to [...]
To Increase or Not to Increase? That is the Question
To encourage more primary care providers to serve Medicaid patients at a time when Medicaid enrollment was about to increase significantly nation-wide, the Affordable Care Act raised Medicaid primary care reimbursement to the same level as Medicare rates for 2013 [...]
More Medicaid Expansion Coming?
Now that Arkansas, Pennsylvania, and Iowa have gained federal approval of Medicaid expansion proposals that call for more use of private insurers than states that simply expanded their existing Medicaid programs, it looks as if other states may follow a [...]
Innovation Center Introduces “Transforming Clinical Practices” Initiative
The federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation has launched a new, $840 million program designed to help clinicians achieve large-scale health transformation. According to the agency's news release, its “Transforming Clinical Practices” initiative …will fund successful applicants who work [...]
Medicaid Directors Weigh in On Managed Care Regulation
The nation’s state Medicaid directors have offered their perspectives to the federal government on how to modernize and regulate state Medicaid managed care programs. In a paper entitled “Medicaid Managed Care Modernization: Advancing Quality Improvement,” the National Association of Medicaid [...]
Congressman Reiterates Call for Improving Medicare Readmissions Program
Congressman James Renacci (R-OH) is again asking his House colleagues to support his proposal to adjust Medicare’s hospital readmissions reduction program. Noting that in its current form the program penalizes hospitals that care for larger numbers of poorer, sicker patients [...]
Increased Utilization by New Medicaid Patients Levels Off, Study Finds
Spikes in hospital emergency room and inpatient admissions attributed to patients who have recently obtained Medicaid coverage eventually taper off, according to a new study. According to the study Increased Service Use Following Medicaid Expansion is Mostly Temporary: Evidence From [...]
Teaching Hospitals Pitch More Residencies
With the country facing a physician shortage and the number of medical residencies capped by the 1997 Balanced Budget Act (because Medicare and Medicaid provide the primary funding for the residencies), teaching hospitals need an additional 4000 residency slots a [...]
