Bulletin Board
Bulletin Board
The Prospect of a Medicaid Work Requirement
Over the past three years a dozen states have proposed establishing a work requirement for eligibility for their Medicaid programs and in its proposed FY 2018, the Trump administration has called for extending the ability to impose such a requirement to all states. But how would a Medicaid work requirement work? To whom would it apply and what kinds of work might satisfy such a requirement for the approximately 22 million Medicaid recipients (out of 76 million total recipients) to whom it might apply? A new Commonwealth Fund report looks [...]
Medicare Delays New and Expanded Bundled Payment Programs
Medicare has delayed the launch of its mandatory Medicare Cardiac Rehabilitation Incentive Payment program until January 1. It also has delayed the expansion of its Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement program through a new Surgical Hip and Femur Fracture Treatment program. Originally scheduled to begin on May 20 and then pushed back to July 1, now it, too, will not begin until January 1. Medicare’s Acute Myocardial Infarction program and Coronary Artery Bypass Graft program will still begin on July 1. For further information, see this Federal Register notice announcing [...]
New Book Addresses Social Risk Factors in Medicare
In the new book Accounting for Social Risk Factors in Medicare Payment, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine addresses the question of what social risk factors might be worth considering in Medicare value-based payment programs and how those risk factors might be reflected in value-based payments. The book, the culmination of a five-part NASEM process, focuses on five social risk factors: socio-economic position race, ethnicity, and cultural context gender social relationships residential and community context Addressing such factors in Medicare value-based payments, the book finds, can help achieve [...]
MedPAC Testifies Before Congress
Last week Mark Miller, executive director of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, testified before the House Ways and Means Committee’s Health Subcommittee. In his testimony, Miller summarized and explained some of the key points MedPAC made in its March report to Congress, including: why MedPAC believes most post-acute-care payments are too high; why Medicare needs to reduce the incentives for hospitals and doctors to deliver more services; why it recommended no FY 2018 payment increases for long-term acute-care hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers, and skilled nursing facilities and reductions of payments [...]
Medicare’s Costs Can Be High for Low-Income Beneficiaries
Despite enjoying Medicare coverage, low-income seniors can still spend a significant portion of their limited income on costs Medicare does not cover. According to a new study published by the Commonwealth Fund, more than 25 percent of Medicare beneficiaries spend at least 20 percent of their income on health care – on things like premiums, cost-sharing, prescriptions, and dental and vision care, long-term care, and other services not covered by the federal program. These costs pose a problem for many because nearly half of all Medicare participants have incomes below [...]