hospitals

Financial Outlook Weak as Non-Profit Hospitals Face Challenging 2021

Non-profit hospitals face numerous challenges to their financial health in 2021, according to a recent analysis by Moody’s, the bond-rating company. Among those challenges are weak cash flow caused by reduced non-urgent procedures; weak demand; a shift of patients to lower-cost, lower-revenue outpatient settings; changes in payer mix as Medicaid enrollment continues to rise and more patients lose their health insurance; and COVID-19-related expenses that continue to drive up costs. Learn more about Moody’s outlook for non-profit hospitals in 2021 in the Fierce Healthcare article “Moody’s: Not-for-profit hospitals face major cash constraints, negative outlook for 2021.”

iqtsupport2020-12-16T06:00:46-05:00December 16, 2020|hospitals|

GAO Calls for More Work Scrutinizing Hospitals’ Tax-Exempt Status

The question of whether non-profit hospitals are doing enough to justify their tax-exempt status is the focus of a new Government Accountability Office study on the manner in which the Internal Revenue Service evaluates hospitals’ tax exemption. According to the study, the IRS struggles with one of the three primary criteria for non-profit hospitals’ tax-exempt status outlined in the Affordable Care Act (PPACA): whether the community benefit such hospitals provide justifies their tax exemption. The GAO review observed that While PPACA established requirements to better ensure hospitals are serving their communities, the law is unclear about what community benefit activities [...]

iqtsupport2020-10-23T06:00:31-04:00October 23, 2020|hospitals|

CMS Finalizes FY 2021 Payments to Hospitals

Medicare has announced how it will pay hospitals for inpatient care in FY 2021 with publication of its annual inpatient prospective payment system regulation last week. Among the changes announced by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services: A 2.9 percent increase in fee-for-service inpatient rates. A compromise on its proposal to require hospitals to report their payer-specific negotiated rates with Medicare Advantage plans. Changes in how Medicare will calculate Medicare disproportionate share (Medicare DSH) uncompensated care payments. A much smaller cut than originally proposed in the pool of funds for Medicare DSH uncompensated care payments. Minor adjustments in the [...]

iqtsupport2020-09-09T06:00:15-04:00September 9, 2020|hospitals, Medicaid regulations, Medicare disproportionate share, Medicare DSH, Medicare reimbursement policy|

MACPAC Meets

The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission met for two days last week in Washington, D.C. The following is MACPAC’s own summary of the sessions. The February 2020 MACPAC meeting opened with a continuation of MACPAC’s examination of Medicaid’s role in maternal health, when Medicaid officials from Michigan, New Jersey, and North Carolina joined the Commission to discuss how their states are addressing maternal morbidity and mortality.* The Commission plans to include a chapter on maternal health in its June 2020 report to Congress. Commissioners later turned their attention to policy options for improving enrollment in the Medicare Savings Program. [...]

iqtsupport2020-03-06T06:00:04-05:00March 6, 2020|hospitals, Medicaid, Medicaid managed care, Medicaid regulations, Medicare|

Comfort, Not Quality, Woos Patients

People are more likely to recommend a hospital based on the comfort they felt when hospitalized rather than on the quality of the care they received, a new study has found. Good food, rooms with a view, friendly nurses, peace and quiet, more television channels, and other amenities impress patients more than higher survival rates and lower hospital-acquired conditions rates. These are among the findings from an analysis of patient satisfaction data from 3000 hospitals between 2007 and 2010. Learn more about how inpatients view their hospital experiences and how those experiences shape how they rate hospitals in Oxford Academic’s [...]

iqtsupport2020-03-04T06:00:37-05:00March 4, 2020|hospitals|

Supreme Court Paves Way for Public Charge Regulation

The revised public charge regulation that will make it more difficult for some immigrants to come to the U.S. will be implemented after the Supreme Court lifted preliminary injunctions issued by lower courts that delayed the regulation’s implementation. Under revisions of the public charge regulation introduced last year, individuals seeking entry into the U.S. and green cards who do not appear to be financially independent or have employment commitments can be denied entry if they will be dependent on means-tested public aid programs such as Medicaid or food stamps or even if they, or members of their family, appear likely [...]

iqtsupport2020-02-24T10:38:18-05:00February 24, 2020|hospitals, Medicaid|

Fitch: Medicaid Block Grants, MFAR Threaten States, Providers

Medicaid block grants and the proposed Medicaid fiscal accountability regulation (MFAR) pose new financial threats to providers and states, according to Fitch Ratings, the financial rating company. MFAR poses the greater threat, Fitch believes, noting in a new analysis that it could …reduce total Medicaid spending nationally by $37 billion and $44 billion annually…and by $23 billion to $30 billion for hospitals alone. States, and to some extent providers, would respond to MFAR’s implementation with measures to mitigate the negative fiscal implications. Block grants, through what has been named the Healthy Adult Opportunity program, also pose a threat, with Fitch [...]

iqtsupport2020-02-18T13:28:21-05:00February 18, 2020|hospitals, Medicaid, Medicaid regulations|

Health Care Groups Rebel Against Proposed Federal Regulation, Program

The administration’s proposed Medicaid fiscal accountability regulation and its guidance encouraging states to implement Medicaid block grants have incurred widespread opposition among a variety of health care groups. The Medicaid fiscal accountability regulation would, if adopted, impose new restrictions on how states raise their share of their Medicaid spending, potentially limiting state participation in Medicaid or necessitating tax increases to fill the funding gap if long-accepted financing tools are no longer available to them. The Medicaid block grant guidance offers states a blueprint for curtailing their Medicaid costs by imposing limits on that spending that they negotiate with the federal [...]

iqtsupport2020-02-07T06:00:27-05:00February 7, 2020|Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, DeBrunner & Associates, hospitals, Medicaid, Medicaid regulations|

Supreme Court Lifts Public Charge Rule Ban

The U.S. can now reject visa and green card applicants based on their financial prospects after a new Supreme Court ruling this week. This ruling has potential long-term implications for health care providers. Last August a new Department of Homeland Security regulation took effect that authorized the federal government to reject immigrants’ applications for visas and green cards if their financial situation and employment prospects suggested that they might become a “public charge” and dependent on government safety-net programs like Medicaid and food stamps. A number of groups sued to prevent the rule’s implementation and federal courts imposed an injunction [...]

iqtsupport2020-01-30T06:00:23-05:00January 30, 2020|hospitals, Medicaid|

Hospital Outpatient Visits Down

For the first time in 35 years, hospital outpatient volume declined in 2019. Despite the trend toward delivery of more health care in outpatient settings, hospitals saw fewer outpatients in 2019 as more people turned to urgent care settings and other clinics for outpatient services. Much of the decline was in emergency room visits, with patients also turning to urgent care facilities for non-emergency services they traditionally sought in hospital ERs. Despite the decline in volume, hospitals saw their net outpatient revenue rise 4.5 percent in 2019. Learn more about what is happening to hospital outpatient volume in the HealthCare [...]

iqtsupport2020-01-15T11:46:35-05:00January 15, 2020|hospitals|