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|

Good News and Bad for Hospitals on Outpatient Payments

A federal court has provided relief to hospitals that saw reduced Medicare payments for some outpatient services in 2019. But that relief is only partial. In response to a suit filed by several hospital groups, a federal court ruled that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid services had illegally reduced Medicare payments for services provided in some hospital off-campus outpatient departments beginning on January 1, 2019 and ordered the federal government to repay the hospitals for the Medicare revenue they lost. The reduced payments were part of a new Medicare site-neutral payment policy for outpatient services, and CMS has announced [...]

iqtsupport2019-12-17T09:40:07-05:00December 17, 2019|Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, hospitals, Medicare, Medicare reimbursement policy|

MedPAC Meeting Transcript Now Available

Last week the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission met in Washington, D.C. The Medicare payment issues on its agenda were: Assessing payment adequacy and updating payments: Physician and other health professional services Assessing payment adequacy and updating payments: Ambulatory surgical center services Assessing payment adequacy and updating payments: Hospital inpatient and outpatient services; Mandated report: Expanding the post-acute care transfer policy to hospice Assessing payment adequacy and updating payments: Skilled nursing facility services Assessing payment adequacy and updating payments: Home health care services Assessing payment adequacy and updating payments: Inpatient rehabilitation facility services Assessing payment adequacy and updating payments: Long-term care [...]

iqtsupport2019-12-13T06:00:56-05:00December 13, 2019|hospitals, Medicare, Medicare post-acute care, Medicare regulations, Medicare reimbursement policy, MedPAC|