Policy and Legislation
Despite objections of a large block of fiscally conservative Republicans, the House yesterday approved a fiscal cliff compromise crafted in the Senate in the first hours of the new year by a vote of 257 to 167, which also averted steep Medicare payment cuts to doctors for yet another year.
As healthcare organizations increase their focus on data security and HIPAA compliance, Kroll's Cyber Security Forecast offers a list of four concerns every provider should take very seriously.
Medicare on Dec. 20 disclosed bonuses and penalties for nearly 3,000 hospitals as it ties almost $1 billion in payments to the quality of care provided to patients.
Researchers from global consulting company PwC say providers and insurers have ample opportunities, but also significant challenges in serving the roughly 30 million people who will become newly insured through Medicaid expansion and via the health insurance exchanges in the coming years.
With the increasing costs of a growing Medicare population and of an American population that is living longer but with more chronic disease, the U.S. healthcare system needs to utilize better care coordination and payment reform to keep costs down, according to a report from the American Hospital Association (AHA).
As lawmakers debate the ingredients of a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff, a long-term care membership organization offers a recipe for post-acute system reform that can be adapted for all sectors of healthcare.
The Department of Justice recently announced that it secured a record $4.9 billion in settlements and judgments in civil fraud cases in FY 2012, including health care fraud recoveries totaling more than $3 billion.
The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) announced it was granting $40.7 million over three years to fund patient-centered comparative effectiveness research in the first four areas of its National Priorities for Research and Research Agenda.
Many safety-net hospitals that treat a higher number of lower-income patients than other hospitals are worried that the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) will have a disproportionate impact on their reimbursements due to their traditionally higher readmission rates. A new Commonwealth Fund analysis confirms those fears.
The Alliance of Specialty Medicine joined a number of other medical organizations as it called on Congress to permanently fix the flawed sustainable growth rate (SGR) Medicare payment formula as part of any legislation designed to avert the fiscal cliff.