Accounting & Financial Management
Healthcare providers are realizing they must create and sustain a more effective revenue cycle to ensure long-term viability. To remain competitive, providers must closely evaluate the current state of their revenue cycle and implement improvement opportunities.
The 2015 Medicare Part A deductible -- for inpatient hospital, skilled nursing facility and home healthcare services -- will increase by $44 in calendar year 2015 to $1,260, while the monthly Part A premium will decline by $19. Medicare Part B monthly premiums and deductibles will remain unchanged.
Most hospitals fall well short of their cost reduction targets, in part because the ability of chief financial officers to meaningfully impact how operational and clinical leaders approach the issue is limited.
Many Medicare beneficiaries treated at primarily rural "critical access" hospitals end up paying between two and six times more for outpatient services than do patients at other hospitals, according to a report released Wednesday by the HHS inspector general.
The HHS Inspector General continues to fault CMS for failing to issue final regulations to enforce the location requirements for rural health clinics. The agency's inaction is costing taxpayers millions.
When a healthcare provider's data resides on someone else's servers, plenty can go wrong. And HIPAA isn't necessarily the worst of it. Experts offer contracting advice to help head off financial and legal disputes between vendors and providers.
A new report by the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association paints a grim picture of the daunting financial challenges facing hospitals and other healthcare organizations in that state.
In an era of mounting fiscal uncertainty marked by downward trending net revenue at hospitals, the need for cost reduction has never been greater. Yet, many cost reduction efforts fail due to a lack of understanding about "the how" of achieving real, measurable cost savings.
New research suggests that socioeconomic factors can account for most of the geographical variation in Medicare spending. As a result, larger socio-demographic issues must be considered when assessing the quality of care offered by healthcare providers.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has published a final rule updating the hospice wage index and payment rate for Fiscal Year 2015. It adopts a number of payment reforms addressing concerns about program integrity, beneficiary protection and quality.