Reimbursement
The price of an initial inpatient stay explains almost all of the wide spending variation among hospitals on episodes of care, such as for knee or hip replacements, the National Institute for Health Care Reform has found. That finding is important for the move toward bundled payments.
Last month, Paul R. Bengston, CEO of Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital, a small, critical access hospital located in St. Johnsbury, Vt., was chosen to lead the American Hospital Association's Section for Small or Rural Hospitals in 2014. The 21-person governing council represents small or rural hospitals in the AHA's policy process and member services initiatives.
Tax preparers may play a key role in getting many uninsured individuals covered during the final weeks before the health insurance exchange enrollment deadline as most of the uninsured who file tax returns use in-person professional preparers, including two-thirds of those who claim the earned income tax credit (EITC).
After the Health and Human Services Department gave a tentative go-ahead for some hospitals to help pay for health plan costs and an uproar ensued over funding for HIV/AIDS patients, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana is planning to stop accepting premium payments from most third parties.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' latest proposals to curb the overuse of painkillers could have a lot of unintended consequences, hospice and palliative care advocates are warning.
Tenet Healthcare Corp., the nation's third largest for-profit hospital operator, said Tuesday it expects 15 percent of its uninsured patients to get covered this year as a result of the Affordable Care Act.
Although highly touted, the patient-centered medical home model failed to lower use of services or total costs and produced little quality improvement over three years, research in the latest Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) has found.
The federal government is proposing a 3.5 percent Medicare Advantage rate reduction, but all other factors considered, how much could the cuts translate into?
Maryland's troubled insurance exchange is ending its contract with the lead IT developer and might be trying to recoup some of the millions that've been paid out, while calling in the nation's go-to HIX fix-it firm.
Aetna CEO Mark T. Bertolini believes that when times are tough, people want to hear the truth. In his Monday morning opening keynote here at HIMSS14, Bertolini was prepared to speak the unvarnished truth.