Policy and Legislation
HHS issued modifications to the HIPAA Privacy, Security, Enforcement, and Breach Notification Rules late Thursday. The four-part final rule is designed to enhance patients' privacy rights and increase HHS' ability to enforce security protections.
Michigan Republican Gov. Rick Snyder signed legislation last week that strengthens the state's medical malpractice tort laws and provides additional protection against lawsuits to physicians.
On January 8, 2013, the Obama Administration published its latest semiannual regulatory agenda, outlining planned regulatory initiatives in a number of policy areas.
A trade organization representing chief executive officers from some of the country's top corporations offered a set of Medicare recommendations Wednesday that would potentially save trillions.
Across the country, hospices with generous admissions policies may find themselves on life support. Medicare, which heavily funds hospice programs, is cracking down on the industry's growing habit of embracing those whose deaths aren't imminent.
A proposed rule from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released January 14, outlines further details about the standards and systems for states' health insurance exchanges, Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Programs (CHIP).
On Tuesday, Maine Gov. Paul LePage announced at a press conference a plan to repay Maine hospitals the $186 million owed to them by the state for patients covered by Medicaid.
In a report released last week, the Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System describes a set of three healthcare policies that could slow health spending by $2 trillion over 10 years by focusing on the way public and private purchasers pay for healthcare, enhancing consumers' choices of higher-value care and streamlining administrative procedures.
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission intensified its call to repeal the SGR (sustainable growth rate) formula despite the legislative fix at year-end to avert the fiscal cliff and override the planned 26.5 percent cut to provider payments.
On Jan. 1 2013, 106 new accountable care organizations began participating in the Medicare shared savings program, as federal health officials try to show that new health reform programs powered in part by better IT are starting to reap financial benefits.