Medicare “Doc Fix” Problem – Again
Like a case of malaria, the Medicare doc fix problem just won’t go away. On 17 occasions since Congress established the formula for Medicare payments to physicians, Congress has intervened in the application of that formula to prevent steep reductions [...]
Medicare Announces Readmissions Penalties
Medicare will impose financial penalties in FY 2015 on the majority of U.S. hospitals for excessive patient readmissions. In all, 2610 hospitals face penalties that range from one one-hundredth of one percent to three percent of all Medicare payments. Last [...]
Access to Care Lacking for New Medicaid Patients
The Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (OIG) has found that even as Medicaid enrollment surges as a result of Affordable Care Act reforms, many of the newly insured are having trouble [...]
More States Consider Expanding Medicaid
Encouraged by the Obama administration’s willingness to permit states to employ a private market-based approach to expanding their Medicaid programs, a number of states that had previously rejected Medicaid expansion are now considering doing so. Among the states either pursuing [...]
Is Education More Important to Health Than Access?
A new report suggests that education is more important to an individual’s overall health than access to health care. According to the Virginia Commonwealth University’s Center on Society and Health, More education means better health – in part because more [...]
New Medicaid Enrollees Must Renew Coverage
People whose enrollment in Medicaid in the past year was made possible by Affordable Care Act eligibility expansions are required by the health care reform law to renew their eligibility annually. But many do not know this, according to focus [...]
MACPAC Looks at Medicaid, CHIP Issues
The non-partisan federal agency charged with advising Congress, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the states on matters involving Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) met last week in Washington, D.C. The Medicaid and CHIP Payment [...]
MedPAC Looks at Short Hospital Stays
At its public meeting last week, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) looked at challenges surrounding payments to providers for short hospital stays. A presentation delivered by MedPAC’s staff looked at the profitability and growing frequency of one-night admissions; the [...]
New Study: Geography Doesn’t Explain Variations in Medicare Spending
Social determinants of health play a much greater role than geography in explaining variations in Medicare spending. According to a new report from the Brookings Institution, Underlying socioeconomic and demographic characteristics have important implications for the geographic patterns in Medicare [...]
GAO Questions Cost of Private Market Medicaid Expansion
Permitting states to use Medicaid money to enable newly eligible Medicaid recipients to purchase health insurance on the private market may cost more than expansion of traditional state Medicaid programs. Or so says the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). Writing [...]
