Patient Satisfaction, Quality Not Necessarily Related
Patients who express satisfaction with the quality of the hospital care they received are not necessarily receiving high-quality care. Or so says a new study in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. The study found that many patients who expressed satisfaction [...]
Millions Eligible to Pursue Health Insurance Before Next Open Enrollment Period
Approximately seven million Americans will not need to wait until the next open enrollment period to take advantage of enhanced access to health insurance made possible through the Affordable Care Act. While the next open enrollment period does not begin [...]
Hospitals, Charitable Groups to Pay Insurance Premiums?
Hospitals and charitable groups such as the United Way are exploring the possibility of paying the health insurance premiums of uninsured patients who come through hospital doors. Such an approach would enhance access to care for the uninsured while helping [...]
Charity Care? Wait a Minute
Many hospitals are considering whether they should continue to provide charity care to people who were eligible for Affordable Care Act subsidies to purchase health insurance but chose instead to remain uninsured. The issue for many is whether the availability [...]
500,000 at Risk of Losing New Health Insurance
About 500,000 people newly insured through the Affordable Care Act may lose their health insurance at the end of September if they cannot prove their eligibility for that insurance. Most of the cases being reviewed involve whether the newly insured [...]
Clinics Jumping Into Medicaid
Across the country, many free clinics that have long served the uninsured are becoming Medicaid providers. Not to be confused with federally supported community health centers, these clinics have long been an important part of the health care safety net, [...]
Readmissions and Quality: Are They Related?
A new study casts doubt on a major principle underlying a good deal of recent federal health care policy. That principle holds that hospitals that have lower rates of 30-day readmissions of Medicare patients provide better, more economical care than [...]
Translating Insurance Into Care
While the Affordable Care Act is enabling millions of Americans to obtain health insurance – many of them for the first time – many of the newly insured do not understand how their insurance works or how to use it [...]
Protect Hospitals From Medicare DSH Cuts, NAUH Asks Congress
Protect private safety-net hospitals from Medicare DSH cuts by delaying those cuts, the National Association of Urban Hospitals asked Congress yesterday. In a message to every member of Congress, NAUH observed that the Affordable Care Act-mandated requirement to reduce Medicare [...]
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 [...]
