Reimbursement

In a recent speech at the Hoover Institution, Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) argued again that his proposal to reform Medicare, and now his tax credit proposal for replacing the Democratic health care law for those under-age 65, would guarantee to citizens "options like the ones members of Congress enjoy."

Consumer organizations may find opportunities to partner with health plans in the coming years as more health reform changes take affect in the coming years.

I recently had some physical therapy for a minor injury. Since the office forgot to charge my co-pay the first time I went in I received a so-called EOB from my insurance carrier, BlueCross BlueShield of Massachusetts. EOBs are a holdover from the mainframe era: arcane, inflexible reports that are hard to interpret.

The Measure Applications Partnership (MAP), a public-private partnership convened by the National Quality Forum, released two reports on Tuesday that pointed to specific opportunities for more coordinated approaches to making healthcare safer and enhancing clinical performance.

Reimbursement cuts and new payment models resulting from healthcare reform are the biggest challenges confronting U.S. hospitals, according to a new survey of hospital CEOs.

HP Enterprise Services announced the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) has signed a renewal service agreement to manage the state's Medicaid Management Information System. The $172 million, three-year extension will help the state transition to a managed care environment.


Interactions Corporation and Humana will expand their partnership, through which Humana deploys Interactions' voice portal technology to streamline member enrollment for Medicare Part D benefits.

HealthPort, which touts itself as the nation's largest provider of release of information services and audit management and tracking technology, announced Monday that is the first Health Information Handler (HIH) to successfully transmit records via the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS) electronic submission of medical documentation (esMD) gateway for information exchange from healthcare providers.

David Palmer is the actor I remember best for playing the president of the United States in one of the Jack Bauer "24″ series. You probably know him better as a spokesman for Allstate. In one commercial he is standing in front of a town that looks like it has been devastated by a tornado. He begins by saying, "It only took two minutes for this town to be destroyed," and he ends by saying "Are you in good hands?" Allstate also has a "mayhem" series, featuring all kinds of things that can go wrong.

Will accountable care organizations follow the lead of HIEs in analyzing data across participating providers, or surpass them? In this series, we are examining ways health IT can best support the goals of accountable care organizations (ACOs) for health reform.