Reimbursement
As new rules have been recently published regarding the requirements facing nonprofit hospitals due to the IRS Form 990, Schedule H, many hospitals may realize that they are not always taking the best approach to community benefit through presumptive charity and misclassifying a great number of charity-eligible patients.
I am heartened by the release of the Report of the State Budget Crisis Task Force, which highlights the fact that state finances are a mess and likely to get worse. The report identifies six big threats.
Recent events may indicate Governors Bobby Jindal, Nikki Haley, and Rick Perry are resisting health reform to advance their own political fortunes and, in so doing, simultaneously crumbling state healthcare systems and increasing the number of citizens left without insurance coverage.
Most office-based physicians who have adopted electronic health records are satisfied with the systems they have chosen and have noted improved patient care, according to a survey by the Department of Health and Human Services.
A Medicare website that compares hospitals, and another that that provides comparisons for nursing home options, have been revamped to provide more and better information.
An interim final rule adopting electronic funds transfer (EFT) standards has been finalized announced the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services last week.
Changing the method for how CMS adjusts payments to reflect regional variations in the cost of care as recommended by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) can help ensure payment accuracy, but would do little to tackle the broader issues of access to care and care quality.
No matter how healthcare reform shakes out in the short term, reimbursement reductions and shifts in demand are likely to lead to 15 to 25 percent declines in hospital revenue yields in the next decade, according to Booz & Company modeling.
Forming partnerships with insurance companies is somewhat new, but as more health systems are venturing into a teamwork role, impressive improvements are being seen.
The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) has recognized 60 primary care practices with the title of "Distinction" for their commitment to engaging patients.