Community Benefit
A coordinated takedown by Medicare Fraud Strike Force operations in seven cities resulted in fraud charges against 107 people announced the Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday.
As social media continues to be employed as part of a healthcare organization's business strategy, there are bound to be some who are leery of its benefits. But according to a recent whitepaper by the Healthcare Association of New York State (HANYS), refusing to recognize social media as a valuable source of communication is quickly becoming a major "don't."
Occupying a former medical offices building in Maine's largest city, Portland Community Health Center serves about 2,600 of the city's population of just over 66,000. Its patient population is largely on Medicaid and about 35 percent of them have no insurance at all. Half are refugees from countries such as Sudan and Somalia.
The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that 3.4 million people in the individual market will receive $426 million in consumer rebates because of the Affordable Care Act's new MLR rules.
Within a handful of miles of the birthplace of the American Revolution, a new revolution was being fomented the last week of April.
As a way to bring awareness to an inexpensive way to prevent injuries and death to children, the Ohio Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (Ohio AAP) is sponsoring Bike Helmet Safety Awareness Week from May 7-11, 2012. According to Ohio AAP, a $10 bike helmet saves a healthcare system $41 per child.
Under the Affordable Care Act, health plans have to issue rebates to policyholders if they don’t spend at least 80 or 85 percent of premiums on medical costs. Now that the law is in effect, about $1.3 billion is to be paid out.
The National Quality Forum (NQF) board of directors has endorsed two measures that address all-cause unplanned readmissions in hospitals -- an area of healthcare targeted for improvement given national imperatives to make healthcare safer, more affordable and keep people healthy.
In order to control the overall cost of healthcare in the U.S., stakeholders must focus on high-cost patients with chronic conditions, David Blumenthal, MD, told an audience at NEHI's Bridging the Innovation Gap conference in Boston on Thursday.
With the help of a two-year task force effort with the Foundation for Health Coverage Education (FHCE), Sharp HealthCare in San Diego has saved $5 million from self-pay patient reimbursements at four of their busiest emergency departments.