Bulletin Board
Bulletin Board
Medical Homes and High-Need Patients
With five percent of patients accounting for 50 percent of health care costs, such high-need patients are the subject of increasing attention as health care providers search for better ways to serve them at less cost. Such patients are especially challenging when they lack the financial resources and personal support systems needed to address their considerable medical needs. One of those ways is through the concept of the medical home: an approach to primary care, also often referred to as a patient-centered medical home, that is a team-based approach to [...]
MedPAC: New Medicare Post-Acute Payment System Needed – Soon
Medicare should implement a unified, site-neutral payment system for post-acute care as soon as 2021, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission has decided. Current efforts to develop and implement such a system should be accelerated, Congress’s advisors on Medicare payment issues decided. While MedPAC’s recommendations are not binding, they are highly respected by Congress and federal regulators and often find their way into new public policy. MedPAC will present its latest recommendations to Congress in June. For more information about MedPAC’s position on post-acute-care payments, see this article in McKnight’s Long-Term [...]
MedPAC Meets
The Medicare Payment Advisory Committee met last week in Washington, D.C. On the MedPAC agenda were the following issues: Part B drug payment policy issues using premium support in Medicare implementing a unified payment system for post-acute care an overview of the medical device industry regional variation in Medicare Part A, Part B, and Part D spending and service use measuring low-value care in Medicare payment and plan incentives in Part D the role of Medicare policy in provider consolidation Find the issue briefs and presentations that supported MedPAC commissioners’ [...]
ACA Improved Hospital Financial Performance
Hospitals in states that expanded their Medicaid programs under the Affordable Care Act enjoyed improved financial performance, a new analysis has found. According to the report from the Urban Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and based on FY 2015 data, In states that expanded Medicaid through the ACA, hospitals had $5.0 million in increased Medicaid revenue and $3.2 million decreased uncompensated care costs, on average per hospital. Hospitals in states that expanded Medicaid through the ACA improved average operating margins by 2.5 percentage points. Small hospitals, for-profit and [...]
New County Health Rankings Published
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has published health rankings for every county in the country. Among the health or health-related factors for which the rankings provide data are: demographic information quality of life health factors percentage of population uninsured supply of health care providers and services socio-economic factors the physical environment Find the county health rankings here.