Healthcare Finance Staff
Florida Governor Rick Scott wants to rein in state spending and has proposed using Medicaid as the major tool with which to fill in its $2 billion shortfall.
Marilyn Tavenner, acting administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, expressed urgency in pressing forward with the "triple aim" goals of better individual health care, better population health and lower costs called for in the health reform law and translated into initiatives by her predecessor.
When the state health insurance exchanges (HIX) come online in 2014, the insurance industry will begin to shift from a B2B market to one that includes B2C. The Affordable Care Act will allow individuals and small businesses to buy coverage through these online insurance marketplaces at the state level. As such, participants likely will buy on value, and health plans will need to stand out from the many options available to members, while also remaining price competitive.
In addition to being the sole state named on the moniker Florida et al vs. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services case that the Supreme Court will hear in late March, Florida is one of four states trailing the most on health reform.
A new report published online in the journal Health Affairs showed that 94.2 percent of the non-elderly population in Massachusetts had health insurance, a significant increase over the 86.6 percent who were insured prior to the state's health reforms.
With the Supreme Court just two months away from hearing a historic legal challenge to the 2010 health law, nearly 60 percent of the public expects the justices to depend more on personal ideology than a legal analysis of the individual mandate, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation's January health tracking poll.
Neither President Obama, in his State of the Union Address, nor Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, in his Republican response, said very much about healthcare.
One of the critical challenges to the successful adoption of patient-centered healthcare is ensuring that the patient adheres to his or her medication requirements. This means taking the right mediation in the right dose at the right time, with the right outcomes.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is filling in more details about how physicians and hospitals may appeal decisions that prevent them from receiving or keeping payment as part of the EHR Incentive Program.
The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) has released for public comment a first draft of its national priorities for research and research agenda. The research requires the use of electronic health records, much in the way accountable care organizations use health data to improve care. The outcomes are conveyed to physicians electronically.