Reimbursement
Highmark executives announced Thursday that the health insurer intends to team up with West Penn Allegheny Health System, EHR vendor Allscripts and consulting firm Accenture to develop a framework to provide physicians with electronic health records functionality and practice management tools needed to meet the federal government's meaningful use requirements.
A consumer sentiment index from Thomson Reuters showed that consumers' confidence in their ability to pay for healthcare declined in July after two straight months of improvement.
Medicare payments to skilled nursing facilities will be cut by $3.87 billion for FY 2012, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced in a final rule.
The normally sage CEO of the Kaiser Family Foundation, Drew Altman, isn't as persuasive in his latest Pulling it Together column. As he puts it, "our health care system has been, and will remain, a mixed public-private one."
A recent study in Health Affairs examined for the first time the effects that differences in healthcare service volume and price, rather than simply spending and use, have on state and regional Medicaid spending.
In early July, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued proposed changes that would update payment policies and rates for physicians, dialysis facilities and services to Medicare beneficiaries in hospital outpatient departments and decrease Medicare payments to home health agencies.
As Medicare spending on hospice care for nursing facility residents continues to grow, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services should more closely scrutinize hospices, concludes a report from the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General.
A recent study in Health Affairs examined for the first time the effects that differences in healthcare service volume and price, rather than simply spending and use, have on state and regional Medicaid spending.
Lifestyle-based analytics may be an "emerging" predictive health model, but experts note that it's "simply taking data that we already have at our fingertips" and analyzing it in ways that weren't possible before.
Seniors responding to a new poll said they are significantly concerned about the potential impact to their health coverage if the federal deficit reduction plan includes changes to Medicare benefits.