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 [...]
Medicare Proposes Updating Physician Quality Program
Medicare is proposing changes in its quality program for outpatient care provided by physicians. In a newly proposed regulation, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) proposes adding 28 new measures to Medicare’s Physician Quality Reporting System and removing [...]
The Cost of Rejecting Medicaid Expansion
The 24 states that have chosen not to expand their Medicaid programs under the Affordable Care Act have cost 1.4 million of their residents a source of regular health care, failed to generate an estimated 184,000 jobs through the end [...]
CMS Provides Details on Medicare Chronic Care Payments
Following up on last year’s announced introduction of special payments to physicians who care for seniors with chronic medical conditions, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has published a draft regulation that provides further information about how those [...]
NAUH Comments on Proposed FY 2015 Medicare Inpatient Regulation: Part 7 of 7
Every year, the Centers for Medicare & Medicare Services (CMS) publishes in the Federal Register a draft regulation describing how it proposes paying hospitals for the inpatient care they provide to their Medicare patients in the coming fiscal year. The [...]
Medicaid, CHIP Enrollment on the Rise
Enrollment in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) increased by six million people between October of 2013 and April of 2014. Most of these new enrollments were driven by Medicaid expansion authorized by the Affordable Care Act, and [...]
NAUH Comments on Proposed FY 2015 Medicare Inpatient Regulation: Part 6 of 7
Every year, the Centers for Medicare & Medicare Services (CMS) publishes in the Federal Register a draft regulation describing how it proposes paying hospitals for the inpatient care they provide to their Medicare patients in the coming fiscal year. The [...]
