Bulletin Board
Bulletin Board
ACA Reduced Disparities in Access to Care
The Affordable Care Act has reduced socioeconomic disparities in access to health care in the U.S. According to a new study published in the journal Health Affairs, Health care access for people in lower socioeconomic strata improved in both states that did expand eligibility for Medicaid under the ACA and states that did not. However, gains were larger in expansion states. The absolute gap in insurance coverage between people in households with annual incomes below $25,000 and those in households with incomes above $75,000 fell from 31 percent to 17 percent (a [...]
CMS Takes First Steps Toward Medicaid DSH Cuts
Federal funds allocated to states to make Medicaid disproportionate share hospital payments (Medicaid DSH) payments would be reduced beginning in FY 2018 under a new rule proposed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The Medicaid DSH cuts, mandated by the Affordable Care Act but delayed several times at the behest of Congress, would come in the form of reduced Medicaid DSH allocations to individual states, with the size of those allocation cuts based on the nature of individual states’ Medicaid programs and changes in the number of uninsured [...]
Behavioral Health Services in Medicaid Expansion States
The U.S. Government Accountability Office has performed a limited study of the utilization of Medicaid behavioral health services in Medicaid expansion states. The study, based on data from New York, Washington, Iowa, and West Virginia, found that the two most heavily utilized behavioral health services were diagnostic and psychotherapy services and that more than two-thirds of behavioral health patients were prescribed anti-depressants. More people sought help for mental health challenges that for substance abuse problems. Medicaid officials in the selected states concluded that enrollment in Medicaid enhanced access to behavioral [...]
Ways and Means Seeks to Cut Medicare Red Tape
The House Ways and Means Committee’s Health Subcommittee has launched a new initiative to attempt to improve the delivery of Medicare services and eliminate statutory and regulatory obstacles to more effective care delivery. The subcommittee describes its “Medicare Red Tape Relief Project” as …a new initiative to deliver relief from the regulations and mandates that impede innovation, drive up costs, and ultimately stand in the way of delivering better care for Medicare beneficiaries. In support of this initiative, the committee has announced a three-part approach in which it will seek [...]
Study Finds Communication Woes That Pose Risks for the Elderly
Inadequate communication between doctors and home health providers unnecessarily puts elderly patients at risk, a new study has found. At the heart of this problem are lack of access to physician information for home health workers, challenges home providers face when seeking to order new services, lack of accountability among physicians, and poor transitions between hospitalists and patients’ primary care doctors. Learn more about these challenges and ways to address them in the study “’Connecting the Dots’: A Qualitative Study of Home Health Nurse Perspectives on Coordinating Care for Recently [...]