Reimbursement
Nearly 47 percent of California voters over the age of 40 surveyed say a close family member will need long-term care within the next five years, and about as many say they couldn't afford even one month of nursing home costs, according to a poll by the SCAN Foundation and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.
National health spending in July grew 4.2 percent relative to July 2011, up from the 3.9 percent growth rate experienced in June, according to the Health Sector Economic Indicators brief released recently by the Altarum Institute’s Center for Sustainable Health Spending.
A three-judge federal court in Boston rejected the state of Maine's request for an expedited review of its Medicaid waiver application, Thursday, saying "the facts do no warrant" the need for a fast review.
A U.S. Census report released this week showed that the ranks of uninsured shrank for the first time since 2007 dropping to 15.7 percent of the population compared with 16.3 percent in 2010 and a separate report showed average insurance rates increased only 4 percent in 2012.
About 47 percent of California voters older than 40 surveyed in a poll say a close family member will need long-term care within the next five years, and about as many say they couldn't afford even one month of nursing home costs, the SCAN Foundation and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research have found.
As director of the HIT Initiatives Group in the Office of E-health Standards and Services at CMS, Elizabeth Holland is intricately involved in shaping the meaningful use rules that some view as having the potential to transform healthcare. Holland is a veteran policymaker. She joined CMS in 1991. It was when the proposed rule for the Medicare fee schedule was in the works. CMS received 100,000 comments – all on paper.
Overall U.S. healthcare prices increased nearly a full percentage point from July to August 2012, rising 0.9 percent, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
There are no set appropriations for how much the federal government can spend on rewarding providers who adopt and use electronic health records under the Medicare and Medicaid meaningful use EHR incentive program, according to National Coordinator for Health IT Farzad Mostashari, MD.
States that want to create their own health insurance exchanges, rather than accept a federal model, have until September 30 to inform the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services of the minimum requirements for all plans sold in the exchange.
Preparing for the growth of the retail market, while trying to maintain profit margins under the medical loss ratio requirements, some insurers are chucking their old administration, claims and sales systems in favor of more web-based and automated software.