Bulletin Board
Bulletin Board
Congress Looks at 340B Program
Last week the House Energy and Commerce Committee took a look at the 340B prescription drug discount program, which requires pharmaceutical companies to sell discounted drugs for outpatient use to hospitals that care for especially large numbers of low-income patients. The previous week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued a proposed Medicare regulation calling for significant reductions in Medicare payments for such drugs. The hearing touched on the CMS proposal to reduce Medicare payments for 340B drugs, the high prices of prescription drugs, the 340B program’s growth over [...]
Mortality Doesn’t Go Up When Readmissions Come Down
The emphasis in recent years on reducing hospital readmissions has not resulted in an increase in post-discharge deaths among Medicare patients. Or so concludes a new study published in JAMA. Looking at outcomes associated with Medicare’s hospital readmissions reduction program, the study “Association of Changing Hospital Readmission Rates With Mortality Rates After Hospital Discharge” found that … of more than 5 million Medicare fee-for-service hospitalizations for heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, and pneumonia from 2008 to 2014, reductions in hospital 30-day readmission rates were weakly but significantly correlated with reductions [...]
CMS Seeks to Track Post-ASC Hospitalizations
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has announced a new initiative to track hospital admissions among Medicare patients who have recently been served at an ambulatory surgical center. The new measure would become part of the agency’s broader quality reporting efforts. The federal government has a large stake in the performance of ambulatory surgical centers: it spends $4 billion a year on care for more than three million Medicare patients at such facilities. Learn more about the project CMS calls “Development of a Facility-Level Quality Measure of Unplanned Hospital [...]
Medicaid Enrollees: Access and Quality Are Good
Medicaid beneficiaries are generally satisfied with their access to care and the quality of care they receive. Or so reports a new study based on results of the federal Medicaid Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) survey for December of 2014 to July of 2015. According to the survey, nearly half of Medicaid patients rated their overall care 7.9 or greater on a scale of 10; 84 percent reported that they had been able to receive all of the care they needed over the past six months; and [...]
ACOs, APMs Proliferate
The number of accountable care organizations and alternative payment models is growing, as is the number of people served by such programs. According to a new study published on the Health Affairs Blog, there are more than 900 ACOs across the country – a 10 percent increase over a year ago. 32 million Americans are served by ACOs today – 2.2 million more than a year ago. Among them, 59 percent are served through commercial contracts, 29 percent by Medicare contracts, and 12 percent under Medicaid contracts. ACO growth is [...]