The Illinois Supreme Court has ruled in favor of non-profit hospitals in response to a challenge to their exemption from local property taxes. Upholding a 2016 lower court ruling, the state Supreme Court affirmed that non-profit hospitals’ charitable expenditures can be used to offset their local property tax liabilities. Learn more about the court’s decision in this article in Crain’s Chicago Business.
Non-profit hospitals’ operating margins fell from a median of 2.8 percent in 2016 to 1.9 percent in 2017, according to Fitch Ratings. Non-profit hospitals’ profitability also declined. Despite this, Fitch finds that these hospitals have strong balance sheets, with cash on hand and cash-to-debt ratios rising in the past year. It warns, though, that continuing declines in operating margins could eventually threaten those healthy balance sheets. Learn more about Fitch’s analysis in this summary of its ratings report.
Nursing home occupancy fell to 81.7 percent during the second quarter of 2018, according to the National Investment Center for Seniors House & Care. Among the reasons for this decline in the use of skilled nursing facilities are policy changes that seek to shorten length of stay and competition from home health services and assisted living facilities. Occupancy among seniors enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans has been flat, with those living in urban areas more than twice as likely to spend time in skilled nursing facilities than those who reside in rural areas. Learn more about this latest trend in [...]
The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission met recently in Washington, D.C. to review a number of Medicaid- and CHIP-related issues. MACPAC members heard presentations on and discussed the following issues: Multistate Collaboration: Panel on State Perspectives Themes from Interviews on the Development of Hospital Payment Policies DSH Payments: Policy Changes and Policy Options Operational Considerations for Work and Community Engagement Requirements Medicaid Coverage of New and High Cost Drugs Managed Care Oversight Oversight of UPL Payments: Additional Analyses and Policy Options Mandated Report: Therapeutic Foster Care Find outlines of these subjects and additional materials by clicking the links [...]
In a newly proposed rule, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services proposes easing the regulatory burden on health care providers. The proposed regulation, which weighs in at 285 pages, covers a broad range of government regulation of health care providers and would, CMS projects, save hospitals more than $1 billion a year while cutting millions of hours of administrative work. Learn more about what CMS proposes by reading its fact sheet on the proposed regulation or going here to see the proposed regulation itself.
The first reporting period for Medicare’s Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement Model found that participating providers cut costs for episodes of care by more than $900, or 3.3 percent. Most of the savings, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reports, were achieved by sending patients to less-expensive post-acute-care settings or by reducing patients’ length of stay in such facilities. CMS also found that the program’s mandatory participants, located in 67 metropolitan statistical areas, achieved these savings without compromising quality of care as measured by post-discharge emergency room visits, hospital readmissions, and deaths. Learn more about CJR’s early results in [...]
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission met last week in Washington, D.C. to address a number of Medicare reimbursement-related issues. Among the subjects on MedPAC’s agenda were: a unified payment system for post-acute care long-term-care hospitals physician payments next steps in redesigning Medicare’s hospital quality and value programs While MedPAC’s policy and payment recommendations are not binding on Congress or the administration, its views are respected and influential and often become the basis for new public policy. Go here to see the policy briefs and presentations offered to help guide MedPAC commissioners’ discussions about these and other issues.
People are using hospital emergency departments less frequently for low-acuity medical problems, turning instead to retail clinics and urgent care. According to a new study of a limited patient population published in JAMA Internal Medicine, Visits to the ED for the treatment of low-acuity conditions decreased by 36% (from 89 visits per 1000 members in 2008 to 57 visits per 1000 members in 2015), whereas use of non-ED venues increased by 140% (from 54 visits per 1000 members in 2008 to 131 visits per 1000 members in 2015). There was an increase in visits to all non-ED venues: urgent care [...]
Leaders of the House Ways and Means Committee have written to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator Seema Verma to praise her agency’s work in eliminating Medicare red tape – but also asking her to “…take further steps to improve patient care by alleviating administrative and regulatory burdens for Medicare providers.” In three separate letters, committee chairman Kevin Brady (R-TX) and Health Subcommittee chairman Peter Roskam (R-IL) expressed their pleasure with CMS’s recent efforts but specified areas where they would like to see further action. For hospitals, they wrote that they seek further red-tape cutting in the areas of [...]
The House Energy and Commerce Committee has asked the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission to examine the impact of hospital consolidation on patients and federal health care spending. In a letter signed by Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Greg Walden (R-OR), Health Subcommittee chairman Michael Burgess (R-TX), and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee chairman Gregg Harper (R-MS), the Energy and Commerce Committee states that We request the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) conduct research examining questions regarding the market trend of hospital consolidation and the degree to which such consolidation increases cost to the Medicare program and beneficiaries, including the costs for [...]