Reimbursement

When analyst house IDC's Health Insights unit shared its top 10 predictions for 2013, atop the list was that "health reform status quo would persist for the next four years."

As a strategy to improve its patient satisfaction scores and re-establish the human-to-human connection between patients and caregivers, Steve Pu, DO, medical director at Twin Rivers Regional Medical Center in Kennett, Mo., helped establish an initiative called Sacred Moments in January 2012.

Growth in health system capital spending in 2013 is projected to dip below 2010 levels as reimbursements continue to be cut, according to a recent Premier healthcare alliance survey of healthcare executives.

Researchers from global consulting company PwC say providers and insurers have ample opportunities, but also significant challenges in serving the roughly 30 million people who will become newly insured through Medicaid expansion and via the health insurance exchanges in the coming years.

With the increasing costs of a growing Medicare population and of an American population that is living longer but with more chronic disease, the U.S. healthcare system needs to utilize better care coordination and payment reform to keep costs down, according to a report from the American Hospital Association (AHA).

As lawmakers debate the ingredients of a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff, a long-term care membership organization offers a recipe for post-acute system reform that can be adapted for all sectors of healthcare.

Two of Atlanta's largest hospital systems are forming their own insurance company, with plans to sell Medicare Advantage, commercial and self-funded health plans in 2014.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has awarded $306 million to 23 states for streamlining CHIP application processes and increasing enrollment and retention, as part of the five year performance bonus program started in 2009.

The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) announced it was granting $40.7 million over three years to fund patient-centered comparative effectiveness research in the first four areas of its National Priorities for Research and Research Agenda.

Fueled by the needs of the Affordable Care Act, healthcare IT spending among state and local governments is projected to grow by $2.7 billion through 2017, according to a new report.