Bulletin Board
Bulletin Board
Medicaid Discovery: More Services Can Reduce Costs
States that invest additional money addressing the social service needs of their highest-cost Medicaid patients are finding that the savings they gain from doing so exceed the cost of providing the social services. Often, by as much as two dollars of savings for every one dollar spent. With relatively small numbers of Medicaid patients consuming a significant portion of state Medicaid resources, providing additional social service assistance to such individuals can both improve their health and save money for the states according to a new report from the National Governors [...]
Examining How Medicare Addresses Primary Care
As the country continues to struggle with a reported shortage of primary care physicians, Medicare, the country’s leading consumer of primary care services, continues to experiment with how best to pay for primary care and address the disparities in compensation between primary care doctors and specialists that has led to this shortage. In general, Medicare takes two approaches: introduce new billing codes that create incentives for primary care physicians to engage in – and get paid for – practices Medicare seeks or establish demonstration programs that facilitate the introduction of [...]
House to Set Sights on Medicare, Medicaid Cuts in 2018
The House of Representatives will pursue entitlement spending cuts next year, House Speaker Paul Ryan recently explained on a radio program. That means Medicare, Medicaid, and possibly even Social Security. Ryan said that We're going to have to get back next year at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit... Frankly, it's the health care entitlements that are the big drivers of our debt, so we spend more time on the health care entitlements — because that's really where the problem lies, fiscally speaking. Learn more about Ryan’s remarks, the [...]
MedPAC Meets
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission met in Washington, D.C. last week. Among the issues on the agenda of the independent agency that advises Congress on Medicare payment issues were: payment adequacy for physicians and other health professional services An alternative to the merit-based incentive payment system (MIPS) payment adequacy for hospital inpatient and outpatient services payment adequacy for ambulatory surgical center services payment adequacy and improving the equity of payments for skilled nursing facility services payment adequacy for inpatient rehabilitation services payment adequacy for long-term-care hospital services payment adequacy for [...]
Hospitals, Trade Groups Differ on Supervision Requirements
According to provider representatives and trade groups, the requirement that physicians supervise the administration of outpatient therapeutic services to Medicare patients in critical access and small rural hospitals is onerous and could limit patient access to such services. The people who run those hospitals don’t agree. That is the conclusion reached by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, which looked into the matter after Congress overturned a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services supervision requirement in the 21st Century Cures Act because, as MedPAC observed, CAH and rural hospital representatives…expressed concerns [...]