Policy and Legislation
Connolly Healthcare, the Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) for 17 states, posted 35 new issues and removed four older issues on its "approved issues" Web page last week. The postings continued a pattern of confusing and incomplete information that healthcare providers have come to expect from the four RACs during recent months.
State governments, like California's, that are already well into the efforts involved in establishing insurance exchanges meeting ACA requirements, may be starting to worry after the mid-term election results.
A national physicians organization says doctors are unhappy with healthcare reform and feel that patient care will suffer as a consequence.
The average per capita cost of healthcare services covered by commercial insurance and Medicare rose 7.08 percent over the past 12 months, according to data released this week by Standard & Poor's.
The 2010 Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey finds the US lags behind other rich countries in health care system performance.
On November 24, 2010, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is publishing its final rule updating the Medicare hospital outpatient prospective payment system (HOPPS) and the ambulatory surgical center (ASC) payment system rates and policies for calendar year (CY) 2011.
Donald Berwick, MD, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, faced the Senate for the first time on Wednesday, a few months after President Barack Obama nominated him to the post in a move designed to avoid such a review.
A federal report shows more than 14 percent of Medicare patients who enter the hospital are harmed by errors or oversights before they leave.
Much of the debate over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's medical loss ratio provisions have focused on what expenses are to be considered claims and quality improvement spending, which are to be treated as administrative costs, and what carrier expenditures should be removed from the MLR calculation altogether.
Open enrollment began Monday for Medicare in 2011, drawing expectations and trepidation from seniors and doctors. This year, while seniors can look forward to more coverage, doctors face a 25 percent pay cut unless Congress intervenes.