Policy and Legislation
Across the country, hospices with generous admissions policies may find themselves on life support. Medicare, which heavily funds hospice programs, is cracking down on the industry's growing habit of embracing those whose deaths aren't imminent.
A proposed rule from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released January 14, outlines further details about the standards and systems for states' health insurance exchanges, Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Programs (CHIP).
On Tuesday, Maine Gov. Paul LePage announced at a press conference a plan to repay Maine hospitals the $186 million owed to them by the state for patients covered by Medicaid.
In a report released last week, the Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System describes a set of three healthcare policies that could slow health spending by $2 trillion over 10 years by focusing on the way public and private purchasers pay for healthcare, enhancing consumers' choices of higher-value care and streamlining administrative procedures.
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission intensified its call to repeal the SGR (sustainable growth rate) formula despite the legislative fix at year-end to avert the fiscal cliff and override the planned 26.5 percent cut to provider payments.
On Jan. 1 2013, 106 new accountable care organizations began participating in the Medicare shared savings program, as federal health officials try to show that new health reform programs powered in part by better IT are starting to reap financial benefits.
Last week's deal to avert the "fiscal cliff" settled very little. For those in the healthcare market, I will suggest the big takeaway is that we should expect very little will be settled in the coming months and we will continue to face a great deal of uncertainty for years to come.
On January 2, 2013, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) published a notice of proposed rulemaking and notice of public hearing regarding implementation of an ACA “shared responsibility” provision.
The Federal Communications Commission is providing $400 million in annual funds to enable thousands of new providers across the country to cut costs and improve care through the use of telehealth networks.
During December, CMS estimated that it paid 10,000 Medicare eligible physicians $175 million and 4,200 Medicaid physicians $80 million in EHR incentives. In December, 850 hospitals under the combined programs received $1 billion. Total payments since the program's inception have reached $10.3 billion.