Feds Urge States to Do More for Dually Eligible
In a formal guidance letter to state Medicaid directors, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has outlined ten ways that states can better serve individuals who are enrolled in both Medicare and Medicaid. Noting that such dually eligible individuals [...]
Bill Would Overhaul Medicaid DSH
A new Senate proposal would change how the federal government allocates Medicaid disproportionate share money (Medicaid DSH) to the states. The State Accountability, Flexibility, and Equity (SAFE) for Hospitals Act, introduced by Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), seeks to …create equity [...]
MACPAC Looks at Medicaid DSH
Last week the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission met in Washington, D.C. and one of the subjects on its agenda was Medicaid DSH. The Affordable Care Act mandated major reductions of Medicaid disproportionate share (Medicaid DSH) allotments to [...]
CBO Targets Health Care in Options for Reducing Deficit
Every year the Congressional Budget Office publishes a menu of options for reducing federal spending and the federal budget deficit. As in the past, this year’s compendium includes a number of options to reduce federal health care spending and raises [...]
MedPAC Mulls Direct Billing for Nurse Practitioners, Physician Assistants
Medicare would permit nurse practitioners and physician assistants to bill directly for their services under a proposal being considered by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. Currently such services are billed as “incident to” physician services, but according to a report [...]
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: Medicare payments for physician and other health professionals services payments for ambulatory surgical centers [...]
Ambulances Respond Slower to Low-Income Communities
People living in low-income communities wait about four minutes longer for ambulances to respond to their call for help when they are having a heart attack, a new study has found. In communities with annual median incomes between $57,000 and [...]
CMS Introduces New Waivers
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has introduced four new “state relief and empowerment waivers” that are widely viewed as new vehicles for states to circumvent Affordable Care Act requirements to implement their own new approaches to health care. [...]
Number of Uninsured Children Rises
For the first time since 2008, the number of uninsured children in the U.S. increased in 2017, according to a new report from the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute. While the total increase in the number of uninsured children is [...]
Medicare Advantage to Address Social Determinants of Health
Beginning next year, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will authorize Medicare Advantage plans to pay for some health-related but non-medical benefits for their members – benefits that will help address social determinants of health that affect the health [...]
