Bulletin Board
Bulletin Board
MedPAC Meets, Discusses Issues
Members of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission met for two days last week in Washington, D.C. to discuss a number of policy issues important to health care providers. Among those issues were: a unified payment system for post-acute care hospital and skilled nursing facility use by Medicare beneficiaries who reside in nursing homes refining merit-based incentive payment systems (MIPS) and Advanced Alternative Payment Systems (A-APMs) to encourage primary care Go here to see the issue briefs and presentations used to guide MedPAC commissioners’ deliberations.
Comparing “Repeal and Replace” Proposals
How can you keep score while Congress considers multiple proposals to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act? The Kaiser Family Foundation has just created a new tool that enables users to compare and contrast all of the current repeal and replace proposals: you pick the proposals you want to compare and you select the aspects of those proposals that interest you. Find this new interactive tool here, on the web site of the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Changing Medicaid
With policy-makers in Washington considering some changes, and possibly major changes, in the state/federal Medicaid partnership, the Health Affairs Blog has taken a look at some of the options those policy-makers might consider. Among them are: giving states greater flexibility in the design and implementation of their own Medicaid programs requiring cost-sharing by some or all beneficiaries, such as through premiums and co-payments limiting benefits employing incentives to encourage healthy behaviors The article also considers the manner in which individuals enroll in Medicaid and how that has evolved over the [...]
New Study Finds Bundled Payments Reduces Costs, Improves Care
A new study has concluded that the bundled payments programs being tested by Medicare reduce health care costs while improving the quality of care. The study covered Medicare Bundled Payment for Care Improvement (BPCI) results for the past four years and includes the Medicare hip and knee replacement bundled care program. And contrary to another recent study, this report did not find any increase in the volume of procedures during the study period. To learn more about the study’s methodology and findings, go here to read “Debunking the Argument that [...]
Group Seeks Preservation, Reform of Federal Innovation Efforts
A coalition of 35 patient, physician, and hospital groups has written to new Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price and asked him to continue the federal government’s exploration of new ways to deliver and pay for Medicare services but to seek certain improvements in how those efforts are undertaken. The coalition Healthcare Leaders for Accountable Innovation in Medicare asked Secretary Price for a reformed Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation so that it operates with … appropriately-scaled, time-limited demonstration projects, greater transparency, improved data-sharing, and broader collaboration with [...]