News
The Medicare and Medicaid electronic health record program has paid physicians and hospitals nearly $2 billion in incentive payments as of the end of November, surpassing what federal health officials anticipated.
Now that is has proven itself by beating the top two champions of the television game show Jeopardy! IBM’s Watson technology is poised for its first commercial opportunity via a partnership with health insurance giant WellPoint that should see it providing clinical support to doctors as early as the first quarter of 2012.
In a year marked by a projected 20 percent increase in healthcare mergers and acquisitions, perhaps one of the biggest M&A stories was one that didn’t happen: Community Health Systems’ hostile bid to acquire Tenet Healthcare.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) continue to ignore protests and a proposed bill seeking to eliminate their competitive bidding program for durable medical equipment as they plan for a major expansion of the program with Round Two.
The legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act have been numerous but finally the highest court in the country will be ruling on the healthcare law – right in the middle of the 2012 presidential campaign.
The sound of doctors running from their private practices has become steady. Over the course of 2011, news reports consistently noted the exodus. Executive vice president of the Maine Medical Association, Gordon Smith, told Healthcare Finance News that the rush of doctors abandoning private practice “was epidemic.”
By 2015, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services anticipates the number of people receiving health insurance via Medicaid will increase by more than 20 million as a result of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. People eligible for Medicare will also increase at a rate of nearly 3 million per year, as the Baby Boomer generation hits retirement age.
The latest in mobile health innovations – from smartphone apps to telehealth tools – might at first be considered in the vein of improving clinical outcomes. But providers, payers and vendors will quickly point out that they can save the healthcare system a lot of money, too.
In 2011, group purchasing organizations were called upon to do more than ever before to assist healthcare providers in cutting costs, and, most GPOs have expanded their range of services to meet this new demand.
The simmering dispute over a new contract between Western Pennsylvania’s largest private payer, Highmark Inc., and the dominant health system in the region, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), reached a full boil mid-year when Highmark announced plans to acquire UPMC rival West Penn Allegheny Health System.