Policy and Legislation
Last month the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services published its proposed rule to update the Medicare Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System and the Ambulatory Surgical Center Payment System rates and policies for calendar year 2015. Here's what you need to know.
The Department of Health and Human Services announced today that providers, payers and clearinghouses must transition to the classification system by Oct. 1, 2015.
In this video from the Healthcare Triage series, writer Aaron E. Carroll, MD, MS, debunks the notion of tort reform as an effective measure of reducing malpractice claims and significantly improving cost control in healthcare.
Medicare's Hospital Insurance Trust Fund won't run out of money until 2030. That's four years later than projected last year and 13 years later than projected the year before the passage of the Affordable Care Act.
A Pennsylvania provider is suing a health insurance company for passing on its 2 percent reimbursement cut required by sequestration.
Although a May 2014 U.S. District Court ruling vacated HRSA's 340B orphan drug regulation, the agency has issued an interpretive rule affirming its policy on the orphan drug exemption. The pharma industry is up in arms, but what does it all mean?
Medicaid beneficiaries deserve the same access to healthcare services and products as people with commercial insurance or Medicare. But since Medicaid pays doctors and hospitals 27 to 65 percent less than commercial health plans, it makes it awfully difficult for providers to be payer agnostic.
If we can identify the "underlying path" of health spending, we can do a better job of predicting the future from a noisy history. This underlying path can also serve as the curve to be monitored for evidence of any "bend."
Business has a vital concern in the financing of healthcare. So why is there not an outcry to switch to a proven financing system that would serve their employees well?
If we don't fundamentally change the way we pay for healthcare, we won't change the economic principles that continue to drive the rapid growth in healthcare spending. Let's pay physicians and hospitals based on the health problems their patients have.