2019 December

Home Health Agencies Expanding Scope of Endeavor

In the coming years, home health agencies will be providing a broader scope of services. With many such agencies already offering medication management technology, remote patient monitoring, image-sharing technology, and mobile apps for e-visits, many are planning to do more. More than a quarter of home health providers plan to move into or expand their telehealth offerings in the coding years and many already provide chronic care services, with more planning to do so in the coming years. Home health providers also are moving into palliative care, veteran-specific services, and mental health services. Behind some of this expansion of scope [...]

iqtsupport2019-12-09T06:00:21-05:00December 9, 2019|Medicare, Telehealth|

Hospitals Sue Over Hospital Price Transparency Requirement

The federal government should be prohibited from implementing its new price transparency requirement for hospitals, a group of hospital trade groups and health systems has declared in a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The requirement exceeds the federal government’s authority, the suit maintains, and its implementation would create an undue burden on hospitals, cost a great deal of money, require hospitals to divulge proprietary information, inhibit competition, and overwhelm their information systems. Even after all of that, the suit claims, consumers would still not have useful information because insurers, not hospitals, are the key in [...]

iqtsupport2019-12-06T06:00:38-05:00December 6, 2019|hospitals, Medicare regulations|

Pennsylvania Moves to Establish its Own Health Insurance Exchange

Pennsylvania plans to move away from participating in the federal health insurance exchange and to establish its own exchange in time for the 2021 open enrollment season. The shift away from using the federal exchange and developing a state-based exchange was approved by Pennsylvania’s General Assembly earlier this year. That shift took a major step forward recently when the state hired a contractor to create the site’s platform. State officials estimate that once the state’s site is up and running it will costs $25 million a year to operate; currently, Pennsylvania pays $95 million a year to participate in the [...]

iqtsupport2019-12-05T06:00:31-05:00December 5, 2019|Affordable Care Act|

MedPAC to Meet Tomorrow

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission meets this Thursday and Friday in Washington, D.C. MedPAC’s December agenda is dominated by Medicare payment issues: how much Medicare should pay for different types of services in calendar year 2021 and FY 2021. The services to be addressed during the December 5-6 meetings are physician and other health professional services, ambulatory surgical center services, hospital inpatient and outpatient services, skilling nursing facility services, home health services, inpatient rehabilitation facility services, long-term care hospital services, outpatient dialysis services, and hospice services. In addition, MedPAC commissioners will discuss their mandated report on expanding Medicare’s post-acute care [...]

iqtsupport2019-12-04T06:00:06-05:00December 4, 2019|Medicare, Medicare post-acute care, Medicare reimbursement policy, MedPAC|

High-Deductible Plans Driving Rise in Hospital Bad Debt

Hospital bad debt rose in 2018 after several years of decline, and according to Moody’s, high-deductible health insurance is one of the major drivers of that increase. According to the bond rating agency, non-profit hospitals are seeing growing amounts of bad debt as they struggle, often unsuccessfully, to collect from patients whose high deductibles leave them on the hook for meaningful amounts of care. Kaiser Health News reports that 28 percent of covered workers, nearly half of them working for companies with fewer than 200 employees, now have health plan deductibles of at least $2000. That proportion of individuals with [...]

iqtsupport2019-12-02T06:00:45-05:00December 2, 2019|hospitals|

December 2019

Home Health Agencies Expanding Scope of Endeavor

Hospitals Sue Over Hospital Price Transparency Requirement

Pennsylvania Moves to Establish its Own Health Insurance Exchange

MedPAC to Meet Tomorrow

High-Deductible Plans Driving Rise in Hospital Bad Debt