Accounting & Financial Management
Healthcare prices in May 2014 were 1.8 percent higher than in May 2013, well above the 12-month moving average of 1.3 percent, according to a recent brief from the Altarum Institute.
Children's hospitals increasingly face the same market challenges as other hospitals, including a growing pressure to significantly reduce costs. Dan May of Huron Healthcare offers performance improvement suggestions for finance and operations leaders at these facilities.
Health costs will accelerate next year, but changes in how people buy care will help keep them from attaining the speed of several years ago, PricewaterhouseCoopers says in a new report.
Many small, rural hospitals have struggled financially in recent years. But one critical access facility in Nebraska has discovered a means to financial stability and beyond.
As providers continue adjusting to the reimbursement changes wrought by the Affordable Care Act, it appears increasingly likely that hospitals will place more emphasis on collecting payments at the point of service.
The American Hospital Association is asking federal Medicare leaders to stem the practice of using sample hospital audit data to extrapolate overpayments eligible for recovery. The lack of clarity regarding standards for short patient stays has clouded the issue.
States' taxing of Medicaid managed care organizations to raise revenue for state-share Medicaid payments may be illegal, according to the HHS Inspector General. If so, this raises serious questions that could shake up MCO financing models.
One third of Pennsylvania's hospitals had negative operating margins in the 2013 fiscal year, according to the Pennsylvania Healthcare Cost Containment Council, an independent state agency. The crisis is forcing health systems to rethink organizational mergers and management.
It's not impossible for hospitals to obtain capital in today's volatile credit markets. But it is imperative to be thoroughly prepared before seeking funding, as there are new areas of emphasis you should expect when approaching creditors.
New research suggests that accountable care organizations should make payments to patient-centered medical homes or take other steps to support them financially, since their goals are similarly transformative.