Medicare awards nearly $25M in hospital P4P pilot
A pay-for-performance project has resulted in a 15.8 percent boost in quality over three years at 250 hospitals across the country, the Premier healthcare alliance reported last month. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services awarded nearly $25 million under the joint initiative with Premier. CMS awarded incentive payments of more than $7 million to 112 top-performing hospitals in Year 3. The project, which ran from 2003 to 2006, has been extended by CMS for an additional three years through September 2009.
HHS gives $1 billion to aid hospital preparedness
Public health departments, hospitals and other healthcare organizations will receive $1.1 billion in aid from the Department of Health and Human Services to strengthen their ability to respond to public health and medical emergencies as a result of a terrorism attack or naturally occurring event. The HHS funding is awarded via two separate but interrelated cooperative agreements. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is providing a total of $704.8 million in funding to health departments.
Patient billing records stolen from Utah hospital
Billing records for approximately 2.2 million patients and guarantors were reported stolen in mid-June from the University of Utah Hospitals & Clinics. Backup tapes of patient billing records, which were contained in a metal box, were stolen from a car belonging to an independent storage company that has a contract with the healthcare system. The billing records included patient names, related demographic information and diagnostic codes for those treated at University of Utah Hospitals & Clinics’ facilities or by one of its providers during the past 16 years.
Service aimed at managing collection agency activities
Hospitals that look to third parties to collect overdue bills can turn to a new approach from Waltham, Mass-based Connance Inc. is intended to give facilities more ability to maintain control of the collection process, even as it’s farmed out to outside agencies. Connance executives say the Web-based platform is intended to assist providers who are seeing larger payments from patients, but are feeling pressure to maintain control of the collection process. Connance Agency Manager enables healthcare providers to automate the placement to and oversight of collection agencies working on collecting copays, deductibles and payments from uninsured patients.