Bulletin Board
Bulletin Board
Medicaid Directors Comment on Home and Community-Based Services
The National Association of Medicaid Directors has responded to a request for information published by the Department of Human Services seeking comment on the future of Medicaid-covered home and community-based services. See the association’s comments and recommendations here.
ACA Replacement?
While both the Trump administration and Congress insist that they will repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, neither has yet provided information about what that replacement might look like. But one place worth looking for a possible glimpse into the future is the Affordable Care Act replacement plan proposed by Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), President Trump’s nominee to serve as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. In 2015, Rep. Price proposed the Empowering Patients First Act as a vehicle for replacing the Affordable Care Act. While [...]
HHS Transition Briefing Book Available
Prior to last November’s election, leadership at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services prepared briefing materials for the transition staff of the winning candidate. That briefing book, HHS Presidential Transition Agency Landing Team Book, provides background material that HHS leadership believed would be useful for the incoming president’s transition team. That 118-page book is now publicly available; find it here.
VBP No Boon for Patients
Medicare efforts to use value-based purchasing to foster improvement in the quality of hospital care has not improved the quality of patients’ experience in those hospitals, according to a new study. Addressing the quality of patients’ experience in the hospital, the Health Affairs study “Patient Hospital Experience Improved Modestly, But No Evidence Medicare Incentives Promoted Meaningful Gains” concluded about Medicare’s value-based purchasing efforts that While certain subsets of hospitals improved more than others, we found no evidence that the program has had a beneficial effect. See the study here.
Health Centers Rise to Medicaid Challenge
The nation’s federally funded health centers responded to the Affordable Care Act by serving more Medicaid patients than ever and improving the quality of care they provide. According to a new study published in the journal Health Affairs, Medicaid expansion was associated with improved quality on four of eight measures examined: asthma treatment, Pap testing, body mass index assessment, and hypertension control. Learn more about how Medicaid expansion affected federally funded health centers and how those centers responded to that expansion in the study “At Federally Funded Health Centers, Medicaid [...]