Reimbursement

Ahead of guaranteed issue regulations taking effect in 2014, a new study has found that about 20 percent of individual insurance applications are rejected nationwide.

As Vermont lawmakers start their annual budget-making process, the Green Mountain Care Board (GMCB) has outlined its second year of work as it helps guide the state towards a publicly financed single payer healthcare system by 2017.

Mobile health is one of the more transformative developments in healthcare, according to Patricia Abbott, associate professor of nursing at the University of Michigan, School of Nursing, Division of Nursing Business and Health Systems. "The real winners will be the ones who grab on in the front end, and don't wait," she says.

Collaborative efforts, including tracking Medicaid beneficiaries who frequently use emergency departments and adopting electronic tracking systems to exchange patient information, are among the ways states can cut Medicaid costs, according to a new report by the Washington Health Care Authority (HCA).

I was recently speaking to the clinical leaders of a mid-sized hospital, and a senior administrator posed the question, "should we require our doctors and nurses to get flu shots?" The answer, I said, is yes, and it isn't just to prevent the flu. It's to get into the habit of making our folks do the right thing when it comes to patient safety.

A bipartisan bill introduced by representatives D. Phillip Roe, MD, (R-Tenn.) and Allyson Schwartz (D-Pa.) and with the support of numerous provider groups, seeks for a second time to repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB).

The Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI) announced Thursday that it is conducting its latest online ICD-10 industry progress survey. The survey has a closing date of Feb. 20.

The Department of Health and Human Services' financial watchdog, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), has found that Medicare paid for $126 million in care provided to undocumented immigrants and prisoners, two groups of seniors in most cases excluded from the program.

On Wednesday, New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced that his office recovered over $335 million for the state in 2012 that had been improperly claimed through fraud or abuse in the Medicaid system.

Driven partly by the Affordable Care Act and partly by advances in administrative IT, most states are set to offer online Medicaid and CHIP applications and most are making Medicaid information system upgrades, a Kaiser Family Foundation survey has found.