Policy and Legislation
Healthcare providers who offer extended payment terms to help patients meet rapidly increasing financial liabilities are exposing their organizations to a series of complex consumer credit compliance obligations due to increased regulations by federal and state agencies.
Last week, two U.S. Congressmen from Texas -- Rep. Michael Burgess (R) and Gene Green (D) -- introduced American Hospital Association (AHA)-supported legislation aimed at making healthcare more affordable by promoting healthcare price transparency.
During testimony last week at the Oversight Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee hearing, Irving, Texas-based VHA Inc., said that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Schedule H amendment, which regulates reporting for tax-exempt organizations, has overly burdensome requirements for non-profit hospitals.
Nearly nine-of-ten members of the general public think the cost of healthcare in this country is a serious problem and two-thirds say the problem has gotten worse in the past five years according to a new poll by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), NPR and Harvard School of Public Health.
Opposition to the legalization of medicinal marijuana in the absence of scientific studies that demonstrate its safety and efficacy led the list of resolutions adopted by physicians of the Massachusetts Medical Society (MMS) at the organization's annual meeting of its House of Delegates on May 19 in Boston.
The American Medical Association has called on CMS to extend the ICD-10 deadline two years.
Six states -- Illinois, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee and Washington -- will receive $181 million in grants from the U.S. Health and Human Services Department to help them establish health insurance exchanges.
According to research that was presented last week at the American Heart Association's Quality of Care and Outcomes Research Scientific Sessions 2012, the differences in regional readmission rates for heart failure are more closely connected with the availability of care and socioeconomics rather than with hospital performance or a patient's degree of illness.
The Obama administration released the country's first national plan to address Alzheimer's disease on Tuesday. Calling it a roadmap, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the new national plan "addresses every aspect of what it is to confront Alzheimer's disease."
As the number of home health agencies and fraud cases related to home health agencies continues to skyrocket, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) is exerting more pressure on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to fulfill an obligation that is 15 years old.