Revenue Cycle Management

Maryland officials have proposed what analysts call the most ambitious initiative in the country to control soaring medical spending, a plan that would bring relief to employers and consumers footing the bill while bluntly challenging the state's powerful hospital industry.

With no federal rules telling providers how they can spend their meaningful use incentive checks, hospitals and practices have their options wide open. While many are investing in more technology, that's only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

According to a recent study published in the American Journal of Managed Care (AJMC), researchers from America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) found that from 2008 to 2010 inpatient hospital prices increased by 8.2 percent each year with a wide variation in price levels and growth rates from state to state.

Cancer drug shortages are forcing treatment changes and delays that for some patients have led to worse outcomes, more therapy-related complications and higher costs, according to a national survey of health professionals published Thursday.

When Premier healthcare alliance officials announced this week that their data-sharing collaborative saved 92,000 lives and $9.1 billion since 2008, the emphasis was on the data, but in a briefing Wednesday about the private sector's role in Medicare Susan DeVore, Premier president and CEO, explained that one of major drivers behind the collaborative's success was the culture change that took place among the healthcare providers.

Any patient will tell you that a good bedside manner is just as important as solid medical credentials. As far as Dr. Hubert Fu is concerned, that extends as much to the practice of debt collection as it does to the practice of medicine and that's why he started Debt M.D.

Even though 2 percent reductions are scheduled to hit Medicare payments due to sequestration cuts beginning on April 1, a recent Standard & Poor's (S&P) report said the futures outlook for for-profit hospitals is stable.

U.S. healthcare prices increased in February 2013, rising 0.4 percent over January 2013 prices, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

With some healthcare providers now into their second year of meaningful use reporting, Medicare and Medicaid electronic health record payments were estimated at $12.3 billion paid to a total of 219,000 physicians and hospitals through February since the program's inception.

Healthcare reform and financial and operational pressures will shape how hospitals and systems define and act on ambulatory care unit (ACU) strategies, according to a report from Jones Lang LaSalle.