Reimbursement
Many safety-net hospitals that treat a higher number of lower-income patients than other hospitals are worried that the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) will have a disproportionate impact on their reimbursements due to their traditionally higher readmission rates. A new Commonwealth Fund analysis confirms those fears.
The National Quality Forum announced today that Christine Cassel, MD, the long-time president and CEO of the American Board of Internal Medicine and the ABIM Foundation, will become its new president and CEO effective mid-summer 2013.
In this week's HIX Digest: Utah's pre-ACA HIX seeks certification, Iowa's partnership plan gains support and West Virginia mulls enrollment challenges.
The Alliance of Specialty Medicine joined a number of other medical organizations as it called on Congress to permanently fix the flawed sustainable growth rate (SGR) Medicare payment formula as part of any legislation designed to avert the fiscal cliff.
When hospitals purchase free-standing physician offices they often convert them into outpatient clinics. The shift isn’t visible on the surface, but underneath the covers a powerful economic transformation has taken place, with the new owners now able to charge a so-called “facility fee” to cover the cost of their infrastructure.
Amid the public debate about the affordability of healthcare and insurance, America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) is using new media tools like infographics to explain regulatory and market issues, hoping to reach news savvy consumers inside and outside the Washington Beltway.
When patients have access to after-hours services with their primary care provider, emergency room usage is significantly lower and fewer patients go without needed medical care, according to a study by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC) released last week by Health Affairs.
States must provide a blueprint of their plans to the Health and Human Services Department by the end of the day Dec. 14 for how they will create their state-based health insurance exchanges.
California appeals court OKs Medi-Cal cuts; Medicaid pay raise for doctors met with dissatisfaction in Georgia; and two insurers sue Washington state over Medicaid allocation in this week's Medicaid Digest.
On the heels of the Supreme Court's historic 5-4 decision last June to uphold the Affordable Care Act (ACA), payers and others within the healthcare industry must redouble efforts to comply with the law's information technology requirements. The coming year promises to be one in which health IT deployment reaches never-before-seen heights. The onus is on executives and leaders to encourage IT adoption and the collaboration it can enable.