Reimbursement

Nearly 13 percent of family physicians say they face the prospect of closing their practices entirely if Medicare slashes their payment next year by the proposed 25 percent, according to a recent survey.

To best meet the goals of optimized, coordinated patient care and also help curb costs, physicians should be at the center of accountable care organizations (ACOs), the American Medical Association told the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in a Dec. 2 letter.

The number of people enrolled in either a consumer-driven health plan or high-deductible health plan reached 22 million in 2010, according to the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute.

A new partnership between two healthcare information technology companies will allow patients registering for medical appointments on wireless touchscreen devices to pay for them as well.

What with many healthcare entities already so far behind on both HIPAA 5010 and ICD-10 implementations as to render industry timelines almost worthless, WEDI and NCHICA reworked their recommendation.

Doctors face significant reimbursement cuts unless Congress take action.

2010 was a tough year to be a state Medicaid director.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota has launched a "shared incentive" payment model with four of Minnesota's largest care systems. The model modifies fee-for-service payments to reward quality of care and innovative methods of delivering cost-effective care.

The Wisconsin Health Information Organization is working with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to release CMS' Medicare data and add the information to its WHIO Health Analytics Exchange, according to executive director Julie Bartels.

The RACs officially rescinded some reviews in the past few weeks, even after having completed complex reviews including the issuance of denial letters to the providers for the claims reviewed.