hospitals

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 opposed CMS’s April proposal to withhold the data and the [...]

iqtsupport2022-08-05T09:04:52-04:00August 5, 2022|Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, hospitals, Medicare, Medicare reimbursement policy|

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,” which includes a link to additional resources.

iqtsupport2022-08-04T06:00:02-04:00August 4, 2022|hospitals|

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 the individual funding components of the $300 million in new [...]

iqtsupport2022-08-02T16:39:35-04:00August 2, 2022|Affordable Care Act, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, COVID-19, hospitals, Medicaid, Medicare, Medicare post-acute care, Medicare regulations, Medicare reimbursement policy, post-acute care|

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 of patient care and, when tethered with other policy changes [...]

iqtsupport2022-07-29T06:00:15-04:00July 29, 2022|hospitals, Medicare, Medicare regulations, Medicare reimbursement policy|

Federal Health Policy Update for Tuesday, July 12

The following is the latest health policy news from the federal government as of 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, July 12. Some of the language used below is taken directly from government documents. White House The White House has issued an executive order on protecting access to reproductive health care services. Find that executive order here. In support of that executive order, CMS has published guidance titled “Reinforcement of EMTALA Obligations specific to Patients who are Pregnant or are Experiencing Pregnancy Loss.” Find that guidance here and the agency’s expanded explanation of that guidance in this memo to state survey agencies. [...]

iqtsupport2022-07-12T17:24:37-04:00July 12, 2022|COVID-19, health equity, hospitals, Medicaid, Medicare, Medicare regulations, Medicare reimbursement policy|

Transparency Comes to Health Insurer Payments

When the calendar turned to July, health insurers came under a new federal requirement that they post on web sites the price they pay to every provider with which they contract for every service they cover. The mandate, which traces its origins to the Affordable Care Act and was introduced in a 2019 executive order, was designed to enable consumers to compare what different insurers pay different providers for different services and possibly help them shop for more affordable services for themselves. Doing so, however, will be a challenge for consumers at least at first because insurers will be posting [...]

iqtsupport2022-07-06T13:42:45-04:00July 6, 2022|Affordable Care Act, hospitals|

Hospitals to Feds: Help Us Fight Hackers

Hospitals and health systems are looking to the federal government to help them deal with cybersecurity breaches. Those breaches, which at one time might only cost a ransom of $50,000, now often cost millions of dollars in damage – and in the case of one large health system, more than $100 million. Insurance against such problems, moreover, generally pays only a fraction of the cost of the damage done. The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, often through the latter’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, offer some assistance to hospitals, as does the Department of Health and Human Services’ [...]

iqtsupport2022-06-24T06:00:47-04:00June 24, 2022|hospitals|

Federal Health Policy Update for Friday, June 3

The following is the latest health policy news from the federal government as of 2:30 p.m. on Friday, June 3. Some of the language used below is taken directly from government documents. White House The White House COVID-19 response coordinator and press secretary have held a briefing on the latest in the federal response to COVID-19. Find a transcript of that briefing here. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services HHS and CMS are notifying states that they now have an additional year – through March 31, 2025 – to use funding made available by the American Rescue Plan to enhance, [...]

iqtsupport2022-06-03T16:49:10-04:00June 3, 2022|Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, COVID-19, health equity, hospitals, Medicare, Telehealth|

Federal Health Policy Update for Friday, May 20

The following is the latest health policy news from the federal government as of 2:15 p.m. on Friday, May 20. Some of the language used below is taken directly from government documents. White House The White House has announced that U.S. households may now order an additional eight free home COVID-19 tests at COVIDTests.gov. Learn more from this White House fact sheet. White House COVID-19 and public health officials have held a COVID-19 briefing. Find a transcript of the briefing here and the slides presented during the briefing here. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services CMS has published a new [...]

iqtsupport2022-05-20T17:13:05-04:00May 20, 2022|Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, COVID-19, hospitals, MACPAC, Medicaid, Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission, Medicare|

Hospitals Feeling the Pain of Loss of Pandemic Aid

The end of some forms of federal COVID-19 financial assistance is causing financial pain for some hospitals – especially safety-net hospitals that care for especially large numbers of uninsured patients. During the pandemic, the federal government reimbursed hospitals for testing, vaccinating, and treating uninsured COVID patients; now it does not. During the pandemic, some people, including many who are uninsured, put off seeking to address their health problems because they feared going to a hospital and encountering the highly contagious virus. Now, these individuals are showing up at hospitals’ doors seeking care, have no insurance, their medical problems have grown [...]

iqtsupport2022-05-09T13:00:02-04:00May 9, 2022|COVID-19, hospitals|