Policy and Legislation
Abbott Laboratories has agreed to pay the United States $5.475 million to resolve allegations that the company violated the False Claims Act by paying improper kickbacks to induce doctors to use some of its products.
The December issue of Healthcare Finance News highlights the biggest stories our staff covered across the previous 12 months. And as has been the case for much of the past decade, many of the top issues deal with the tremendous changes impacting the healthcare industry.
Doctors are getting a three-month reprieve from Congress. Included in the bipartisan two-year budget deal to fund the government is a delay until March of a scheduled 24 percent Medicare payment cut and a 0.5 percent pay increase.
Oversight of the health insurance exchanges and the shift to value-based payments are the leading management challenges facing the Department of Health and Human Services in the coming year and the most concerning to the HHS Office of Inspector General.
The Obama administration's 2014 fiscal year budget proposal included a 28 percent cap on the benefits of tax-exempt bonds that could have a dramatic impact on healthcare providers.
Things are looking up for physicians fighting to get their payments from Medicare stable.
About 100,000 Iowans newly eligible for Medicaid are set to get private insurance coverage through a demonstration project approved by the federal government, the second Medicaid "private option" okayed this year.
To keep premiums down on the new insurance marketplaces, payers have created smaller networks of hospitals. But just how small are they?
In 2012, Medicare spent close to $10 billion on Graduate Medical Education. Despite this taxpayer subsidy, very little is spent on training doctors in the nuances of caring for older people.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services intends to finalize the Medicaid Federal Upper payment Limits (FULs) for multiple source drugs in July 2014. This will mean less drug price variance for state Medicaid programs.