Policy and Legislation
At a June 18, 2013 Senate Finance Committee hearing, leading health care experts and U.S. Senators explored the high and variable cost of health care in America, as part of a special Senate Committee on Finance hearing on health care transparency.
After months of speculation on just where the Obama administration is toward the development of the new health insurance exchanges, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued a 48-page report complete with timelines and a detailed report on just where the Obama administration is - - or at least was last month.
Major changes driven by the Affordable Care Act and rising consumer cost-sharing are slowing the rise in the healthcare growth rate, according to PwC's Health Research Institute (HRI).
Between 2005 and 2011, chemotherapy procedures in hospital outpatient settings for Medicare patients increased by more than 150 percent finds an analysis commissioned by members of the oncology community.
MedPAC has found that hospitals with a large portion of low-income patients also have higher readmission rates, and, therefore, higher penalties under Medicare's hospital readmissions reduction program. That imbalance was one of the reasons that MedPAC, in its annual June report to Congress, has recommended that Medicare modify its readmissions reduction policy.
The fiscally reckless Medicare Part D drug benefit - passed by a Republican Congress and signed by a Republican President - continues to add to the US federal deficit and debt. I'm resigned to this program's continuation but perhaps there is hope for it to be modified or somehow brought into better balance.
With the remaining provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) going into effect in less than a year, employers are trying to prepare for how the law will impact health plan enrollment and cost.
Sounding a theme increasingly common at healthcare industry gatherings, the outgoing CEO of Kaiser Permanente called for fundamental changes to U.S. healthcare's business model during a speech at the 2013 AHIP Institute on Wednesday.
The latest installment of the swooping MGMA Physician Compensation and Production Survey: 2013 Report Based on 2012 Data dubs quality and patient satisfaction as measures expected to have a considerable impact on compensation structures in the coming years.
Last week, I received my weekly email update from the Maryland health insurance exchange. Maryland Health Connection completed its Final Detailed Design Review (FDDR) live system demo on Thursday, May 30. The FDDR is a federal stage-gate required of all state-based exchanges. Maryland Health Connection successfully demonstrated end-to-end enrollment of a split family scenario including user log in, eligibility determination, real-time data verification through the Federal Data Services Hub, enrollment into plans, payment and file generation to be sent to an insurance carrier.