Reimbursement

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services last week gave tentative approval to provide $1.9 billion in initial funding to help Oregon overhaul its Medicaid system, which the state says has the potential to save $11 billion over 10 years.

Hospitals, physician practices and health plans across the country are boosting care -- and saving millions -- by employing quality measures, information technology and plenty of innovation. A new book tells the stories behind the successes.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services plans to develop verification data and services to support coverage and eligibility infrastructure for health insurance exchanges and seeks industry information about applications that are available.

While most states are waiting for the Supreme Court to decide the fate of the Affordable Care Act, two states – Vermont and Minnesota –  are already harnessing it to both establish health insurance exchanges and to drive healthcare delivery and payment reforms.

There's a snag in the proposed meaningful use Stage 2 rule, and it concerns whether doctors need to be good at typing. Depending on how the final requirements for Stage 2 play out, they might have to be.

Higher prices and greater use of technology appear to be the main factors driving the high rates of U.S. spending on healthcare, rather than greater use of physician and hospital services, according to a new study from the Commonwealth Fund. The study found the U.S. spends more on healthcare than 12 other industrialized countries, yet does not provide "notably superior" care.

In its Spring 2012 Economic Outlook report, Premier healthcare alliance reported that impending reimbursement reductions and uncertainty around the potential impact of health reform will likely lead to more conservative hospital capital budget expenditures for the year.

For service providers, including telephone companies, Internet and cable companies, cloud service providers, application and data storage providers, the healthcare market is heating up, according to experts at Cisco. 

With the help of a two-year task force effort with the Foundation for Health Coverage Education (FHCE), Sharp HealthCare in San Diego has saved $5 million from self-pay patient reimbursements at four of their busiest emergency departments.

Trustees of the Medicare program today forecast increased financial troubles as a result of an aging population and rising health care costs, increasing the visibility of an issue that is already proving divisive in the 2012 presidential and Congressional campaigns.