Reimbursement
Marilyn Tavenner, acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, received accolades from both sides of the aisle at a hearing on Tuesday to consider her nomination to head CMS. Senate Finance Committee leaders indicated a decision would come soon.
Healthcare insurer UnitedHealth Group has awarded On Lok Lifeways a $897,240 grant to help strengthen its health information technology system and delivery of care to San Francisco Bay area seniors through electronic medical records initiatives. The grant is part of $5.2 million UnitedHealthcare awarded to nine healthcare organizations to support nonprofit clinics, hospitals and healthcare organizations that improve healthcare services for underserved communities across California.
Consumers are increasingly using reviews and rating systems to help guide their healthcare decisions because they are responsible for paying more of their healthcare costs. As a result, the voice of the consumer is taking a larger role in the bottom line of healthcare organizations, according to a report released Tuesday from PwC's Health Research Institute.
One of the biggest challenges hospitals face is getting paid. There's a long list of headaches contributing to a very challenging landscape in the medical billing world. Michele Hilton, general manager of medical billing services, ADP AdvancedMD, offers a little painkiller cocktail to preemptively strike against the headaches of medical billing.
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) on Friday debated how to change the payment method for chronically critically ill patients in acute care and long-term care hospitals so they are more accurate and based on patient needs.
The Senate Finance Committee will hold a hearing Tuesday, beginning at 10 a.m., to consider President Barack Obama's nomination of Marilyn B. Tavenner for administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
States should start tracking self-funding and stop-loss trends, as some self-funding employers may be exposing themselves to high financial and legal risk, a new report from the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute and the Urban Institute suggests.
Consumer directed health plans (CDHPs) that offer low premiums and high deductibles have long been touted as a way to encourage consumers to shop for the best healthcare prices since more of their money is at stake. But that assumption may not be true according to new research from the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics and the RAND Corp.
Regulators in some states are trying to prevent insurers from getting around the health law by extending potentially cheaper, but more limited policies for another year, but other states are giving the firms leeway.
Over the next 10 years health reform will impose upon us about $1 trillion in new taxes and it will take another $716 billion out of Medicare, imperiling access to care for the elderly and the disabled according to Medicare's Office of the Actuaries. It will impose a mandate to buy health insurance on most people and fine us if we don't comply. It will compel all but the smallest employers to provide insurance to their employees and fine them if they don't.