Reimbursement

A study containing mixed results of the effects of increased Medicaid enrollment in Oregon offers some caution about expectations for dramatic improvements in the health of millions of individuals from just expanding coverage across the nation in 2014, according to one of the authors of a recent study.

Federal employees with the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association's health plan will soon have access to personalized health management tools like risk assessments, online health coaching and a 24/7 nurse advice line.

Emergency departments are now responsible for half of all inpatient admissions and accounted for nearly all the increases in admissions between 2003 and 2009, according to a new report from Rand Corporation.

The Texas Supreme Court has denied an attempt by 14 hospitals to force the state Health and Human Services Commission to recalculate and repay the difference on past Medicaid claims.

With hospitals nationwide feeling the burden of Medicare penalties for avoidable 30-day readmissions, C-suite managers have been frantically searching for ways to pinpoint these high-risk patients early on. A recent analysis suggests a low-cost and simple scorecard that detects one out of four of these patients.

When President Barack Obama released his fiscal year 2014 budget proposal in April, John Lozier, executive director of the National Health Care for the Homeless Council (NHCHC), became immediately concerned that not enough is being done at the federal level to resolve the on-going homelessness epidemic.

How consolidation and integration plays out will determine if providers or payers have more influence on competition suggested experts at a conference last week sponsored by America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP).

Utah lawmakers are considering following the rest of the country in adopting a long-term care insurance public-private partnership that encourages people to buy private long-term care insurance and offset the use of Medicaid.

A new analysis of more than 3 million claims for Medicare patients found that patients enrolled in a managed Medicare Advantage plan had better health outcomes than those senior enrolled in the traditional fee-for-service Medicare model.

A new analysis of more than 3 million claims for Medicare patients found that patients enrolled in a managed Medicare Advantage plan had better health outcomes than those senior enrolled in the traditional fee-for-service Medicare model.