James C. Bohnsack
While the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate was naturally expected to drive the previously uninsured to non-group plans, it has become increasingly clear that the individual market is also bracing for a potentially significant influx of currently insured enrollees who are driven there both by choice and necessity.
While health reform has been in motion for more than two years, the Supreme Court’s recent go-ahead on the Affordable Care Act solidified that change is on the way – change that will impact stakeholders across the entire healthcare ecosystem.
With the second anniversary of health reform upon us, we're beginning to hear plenty of perspective from the “usual suspects” – doctors, patients, insurers, hospital CEOs – about the changes they’re seeing so far and what they expect to be the biggest, most significant elements of reform as the implementation dates draw closer.
Recently, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) released survey results that found that just one percent of Americans accounted for 22 percent of healthcare costs in 2009.
Recently, I came across Deloitte’s 2011 Survey of Health Care Consumers and as a Deloitte alumnus, I enjoyed seeing how the firm is tracking industry changes from the eyes of a patient.
Napoleon Hill, an American writer focusing on personal success, once said, “action is the real measure of intelligence.” I agree with this statement, and it is exciting to see that much of the healthcare industry does, too.
In October 2012, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will launch value-based purchasing, which will impact discharge payment structures for all short-term acute care hospitals.
As more Americans are visiting emergency rooms, the number of them around the country is dwindling. According to a recent Chicago Sun-Times article, the number of ERs in non-rural areas in the U.S. fell 27 percent between 1990 and 2009.
Thousands of patients each year who are eligible for financial assistance programs are not being identified at the front-end of the billing process. For those healthcare organizations interested in identifying these patients, determining a “tipping point” could be particularly helpful.
In February 2011, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) launched a “Health Indicators Warehouse” web portal with the goal of helping Americans understand and improve the health trends of their communities.