Policy and Legislation
UnitedHealth Group Inc. is leaving California's insurance exchange at the end of this year, state officials confirmed Tuesday.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid is revising its policy to include shared savings ACOs in its upcoming Comprehensive Primary Care Plus program.
Issues can arise when patient information isn't shared with family and friends, either because medical staff decide to withhold it or patients themselves choose to restrict who can receive information about their care.
While smaller community hospitals would have gotten more money, reports say Partners Healthcare, the state's largest hospital system, could have stood to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in insurance reimbursements.
Seeking to improve patient safety and reduce hospital readmissions, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is readying a series of "Hospital Improvement and Innovation Networks" (HIINs).
Coordination is critical to successfully fending off cybercriminals, Intermountain Healthcare CIO and College of Healthcare Information Management Executives Board Chair Marc Probst told a congressional panel on Wednesday.
Steven Lipstein, chief executive of BJC, which includes Barnes-Jewish hospital in St. Louis, said Medicare doesn't play fair because its formula for setting penalties does not factor in patients with socioeconomic disadvantages -- low-income, poor health habits and chronic illnesses for instance -- that contribute to repeated hospitalizations.
On Tuesday, the House Ways and Means Committee passed the "Helping Hospitals Improve Patient Care Act," a bill that, among other provisions, provides financial relief for hospitals that were in the process of building off-campus outpatient centers in 2015 when the reimbursement policy was changed.
Avalere said the cost to beneficiaries could be higher if they bought in at a younger age, mainly because Medicare offers no financial out-of-pocket cap on services.
The Office for Civil Rights, a division of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, today clarified that doctors and hospitals can charge more than $6.50 to provide patients an electronic copy of their records if they can show that the actual costs were higher.