Health Care Lobbying Rose in 2018
Hospitals and health systems spent $99.7 million lobbying in Washington, D.C. last year, just barely more than in 2017 but much less than in 2009, when the focus of health care lobbying was the Affordable Care Act, then just a [...]
Protections Overlooked as Medicaid Reforms are Implemented
In its eagerness to help states introduce changes in their Medicaid programs and reduce administrative burdens, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is ignoring regulatory requirements designed to understand and measure the impact of those changes on beneficiaries. According [...]
Government More Effective Than Private Sector at Controlling Health Care Costs
For the past dozen years, Medicare and Medicaid have done a better job of controlling rising health care costs than private insurers. Since 2016, according to a new report from the Urban Institute, private insurers’ costs per enrolled member have [...]
NASH Registers Concerns Over Uncompensated Care Audits
The process the federal government is employing to audit the uncompensated care costs that hospitals report to Medicare is plagued with problems, the National Alliance of Safety-Net Hospitals has written in a letter to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid [...]
New Report Looks at Medicaid and Social Determinants of Health
A new report outlines how state Medicaid programs can improve the health of Medicaid beneficiaries through a more concerted approach to addressing social determinants of health. The report, from the Institute for Medicaid Innovation, focuses on how state Medicaid programs, [...]
MACPAC: Slow Medicaid DSH Cuts
Slow the pace of scheduled cuts in Medicaid disproportionate share hospital payments (Medicaid DSH), the non-partisan agency that advises Congress and the administration will tell Congress in its next report of policy recommendations. The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access [...]
NASH Comments on Proposed Medicaid DSH Revamp
In mid-December, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) introduced the State Accountability, Flexibility, and Equity (SAFE) for Hospitals Act, which seeks to restructure the federal Medicaid disproportionate share hospital payment program (Medicaid DSH). Hospitals that care for especially large numbers of Medicaid, [...]
Chatter About Medicaid Block Grants Grows
A week after a published report suggested that the Trump administration might be working on a plan to introduce Medicaid block grants, the Washington Post reports that those efforts are under way in earnest. According to the Post, A small [...]
MedPAC: Overhaul Medicare Quality Programs
Medicare would implement major changes in its hospital quality programs under a proposal approved by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. Fierce Healthcare reports that the proposal adopted by MedPAC for recommendation to Congress and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid [...]
MedPAC Meets
Last week the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission met in Washington, D.C. to discuss a number of Medicare payment issues. The issues on MedPAC’s December agenda were: The Medicare prescription drug program (Part D) Opioids and alternatives in hospital settings: payments, [...]
