Bulletin Board
Bulletin Board
On Second Thought, CMS Decides to Share Hospital Performance Data
After originally proposing not to publish certain recent hospital performance data because it feared it might be skewed by COVID-19-related challenges, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has decided to go ahead and publish that data – but not to use it in Medicare payment calculations. Under Medicare’s hospital-acquired condition program, hospitals are rated on their performance on ten safety indicators. Regulators, however, feared that doing so based on hospital performance during the pandemic might penalize hospitals whose communities were especially hard hit by the pandemic. Patient safety groups [...]
Rural Residents Turning to Urban Hospitals in Growing Numbers
Residents of rural areas are choosing to seek care in urban hospitals in growing numbers, according to a new study. And while this trend has been accelerated by rural hospital closures, it is occurring even in areas where rural hospitals have not closed. Among the reasons for this migration from rural to urban hospitals are physician referrals and perceptions about the cost and quality of care. Learn more from the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health article “Urban hospitals see rising admissions from rural Medicare patients,” [...]
Federal Health Policy Update for Tuesday, August 2
The following is the latest health policy news from the federal government as of 2:45 p.m. on Tuesday, August 2. Some of the language used below is taken directly from government documents. White House The White House has announced two new actions to address the youth mental health crisis: it will award nearly $300 million from the FY 2022 bipartisan omnibus agreement to expand access to mental health services in schools and it will encourage governors to invest more in school-based mental health services. Learn more about this effort, including [...]
Congress Seeks Bigger Bump for Medicare Hospital Payments
More than 140 members of Congress have written to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure asking her to implement a bigger increase in Medicare payments for hospital inpatient services than the agency has proposed for FY 2023. According to separate bipartisan letters from House and Senate members, the proposed FY 2023 increase – 2.8 percent – fails to reflect inflation and rising health care staffing costs. The letter signed by 112 House members states that We worry the proposed payment updates do not accurately reflect today’s cost [...]
Federal Health Policy Update for Wednesday, July 27
The following is the latest health policy news from the federal government as of 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, July 27. Some of the language used below is taken directly from government documents. Final Medicare Payment Regulations for FY 2023 CMS has issued its final FY 2023 Medicare inpatient rehabilitation facility (IRF) payment system regulation, finalizing a rate increase of 3.9 percent, which is greater than the 2.8 percent the agency proposed in April. To learn more about CMS’s final IRF payment rule for FY 2023, see this CMS fact sheet [...]