News

CMS yesterday published a notice indicating an increase in the Medicare Hospital OPPS conversion factor from $74.144 to $74.173, which will slightly increase payment rates for most ambulatory payment classifications.

Average signing bonuses have ranged from $20,000 to $25,000 over the past five years.

Some Kaiser patients still have to wait weeks or even months to see a therapist or psychiatrist, which violates state laws intended to ensure timely access to mental health treatment.

As appropriations are trimmed and payments decline, hospitals in the archipelago state making steep cuts to hold back the losses.

Move comes as state ties payment to the size of patient populations covered by health networks.

One of the nation's smaller but more influential integrated health systems has a new chief executive, in time for both fine-tuning and new ventures.

This year's open enrollment may be mostly over. But for 2016 and beyond, insurers should prepare for evolving regulations on everything from premium increases to drug formularies.

Single safety incident caused the issue that could present major risk to patients.

"You have to match the growth rate to the decline in the utilization rate," says Chief Financial Officer Timothy O'Connor.

Patients' assessments of the quality of the clinical care they received did not improve any more than they did for patients treated in older facilities.