Policy and Legislation
On the U.S. Department of Treasury's Go Direct campaign website is a countdown clock. It isn't counting down to the end of the Mayan calendar. And although some older adults may view the clock as ticking down to the end of the world as they know it, the Treasury Department and leaders of the long-term care industry say the deadline it's counting down to will begin a new era of increased efficiency and cost savings.
An increase in the number of retail medical clinics across the country helped spur a four-fold increase in their use between 2007 and 2009 according to new research from the Rand Corp.
According to a study released Monday by The Commonwealth Fund and published in the August issue of Health Affairs, safety-net hospitals that currently rely on politically-negotiated funding will face significant financial reversals if they fail to change their business practices before the Affordable Care Act (ACA), deficit reduction programs and a weak economy force cutbacks in subsidies.
There are market forces keeping the healthcare mergers and acquisitions market active but not frenetic, according to analysts at a panel called “Financing The Deal” at the Nashville Health Care Council on May 15.
Highmark, Western Pennsylvania's largest health insurer, took another step toward building a comprehensive provider network in the region with the announcement in June of a $275 million commitment to Jefferson Regional Medical Center.
A lawsuit filed July 3 by roughly 50 doctors and a number of California medical groups including the Los Angeles County Medical Association and the California Medical Association accuses health insurer Aetna of regularly and systematically threatening doctors within its network with having their contracts with Aetna terminated for making out-of-network referrals.
Fifteen years after the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) directed the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to implement intermediate sanctions for noncompliant home health agencies (HHAs), the federal agency has finally complied.
When politics gets in the way of policy, you end up with the situations like what is happening now in Texas and Louisiana, where Governors Rick Perry and Bobby Jindal, respectively, both strident and vocal Republican opponents of "ObamaCare," are on the record as saying they will not expand Medicaid in their states. This despite the fact the expansion will be funded at 100 percent by the federal government through 2016 and at no less than 90 percent in ensuing years.
If you were to measure the influence any group has in politics by how much money is contributed to campaigns, the healthcare sector would deservedly be labeled influential. But lobbying insiders say it's not just the money that gives the healthcare industry authority - it's the effectiveness of the advocates the industry employs - and that effectiveness - maybe to the surprise of some - is dependent as much on trustworthiness as on anything.