hospitals

MedPAC Testifies Before Congress

Last week Mark Miller, executive director of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, testified before the House Ways and Means Committee’s Health Subcommittee. In his testimony, Miller summarized and explained some of the key points MedPAC made in its March report to Congress, including: why MedPAC believes most post-acute-care payments are too high; why Medicare needs to reduce the incentives for hospitals and doctors to deliver more services; why it recommended no FY 2018 payment increases for long-term acute-care hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers, and skilled nursing facilities and reductions of payments for home health care providers and inpatient rehabilitation facilities; why [...]

iqtsupport2017-05-22T06:00:12-04:00May 22, 2017|hospitals, Medicare, Medicare post-acute care, Medicare regulations, MedPAC|

Hospital Uncompensated Care Down

As was surely expected, reforms introduced through implementation of the Affordable Care Act have driven down uncompensated care costs for many hospitals. How much? A new study published by the Commonwealth Fund offers the following findings: uncompensated care declines in expansion states are substantial relative to profit margins; for every dollar of uncompensated care costs hospitals in expansion states had in 2013, the Affordable Care Act erased 41 cents by 2015; and Medicaid expansion reduced uncompensated care burdens for safety-net hospitals that are not made whole by Medicaid disproportionate share payments (Medicaid DSH). Learn more, including how the decline in [...]

iqtsupport2017-05-15T06:00:48-04:00May 15, 2017|Affordable Care Act, hospitals|

Health Reform Helps Hospitals in Medicaid Expansion States

The Affordable Care Act’s enhancement of access to health insurance, whether through Medicaid expansion or the subsidization of insurance premiums for working-class and some middle-class Americans, has improved the financial health of hospitals. Especially hospitals in Medicaid expansion states. According to a new report from the Urban Institute, Using data through fiscal year 2015, this new analysis finds that the Medicaid expansion under the ACA increased Medicaid revenue by $5.0 million per hospital, reduced costs of uncompensated care by $3.2 million per hospital, and improved average operating margins by 2.5 percentage points. This study also finds that the financial benefits [...]

iqtsupport2017-04-24T06:00:07-04:00April 24, 2017|Affordable Care Act, hospitals, Medicaid|

Programs, Not Penalties, Drive Readmission Reductions

Participating in federal value-based payment programs does more to reduce hospital readmissions than penalties levied on hospitals with too many readmissions. Or so reports a new study published by JAMA Internal Medicine. According to the study, hospitals that participated in one or more of three Medicare value-based payment programs – its meaningful use of electronic health records program, the bundled payment for care initiative, or an accountable care organization (ACO) program – enjoyed bigger decreases in their avoidable Medicare readmissions than hospitals that participated in no such programs but were only subject to financial penalties levied under the Medicare hospital [...]

iqtsupport2017-04-18T06:00:36-04:00April 18, 2017|Accountable Care Organization, health care reform, hospitals|

ACA Improved Hospital Financial Performance

Hospitals in states that expanded their Medicaid programs under the Affordable Care Act enjoyed improved financial performance, a new analysis has found. According to the report from the Urban Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and based on FY 2015 data, In states that expanded Medicaid through the ACA, hospitals had $5.0 million in increased Medicaid revenue and $3.2 million decreased uncompensated care costs, on average per hospital. Hospitals in states that expanded Medicaid through the ACA improved average operating margins by 2.5 percentage points. Small hospitals, for-profit and non-federal government-operated hospitals, and those in non-metropolitan areas saw the [...]

iqtsupport2017-04-06T06:00:32-04:00April 6, 2017|Affordable Care Act, hospitals|

Non-Profit Illinois Hospitals Keep Tax Exemption – for Now

Non-profit Illinois hospitals will not have to start paying local property taxes. At least not right away. That decision comes from the Illinois Supreme Court, which did not address the question of whether hospitals merit exemption from the local property taxes that some Illinois communities seek to impose on them. Instead, the Supreme Court concluded that the lower courts that ruled unconstitutional the law giving these hospitals their tax-exempt status lacked the jurisdiction to making such a ruling. So the Illinois Supreme Court sent the case back to a circuit court to be reconsidered. Learn more about the latest in [...]

iqtsupport2017-03-26T06:00:40-04:00March 26, 2017|hospitals|

MACPAC Looks at Medicaid DSH

Hospitals that serve especially large numbers of Medicaid and low-income patients still need Medicaid disproportionate share hospital payments (Medicaid DSH) to avoid red ink despite the expansion of Medicaid and the increase in the number of uninsured people fostered by the Affordable Care Act. So concludes the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC) the non-partisan legislative branch agency that advises Congress, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the states on Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program issues. In its March 2017 report to Congress, MACPAC writes that In both expansion and non-expansion [...]

iqtsupport2017-03-23T06:00:53-04:00March 23, 2017|Affordable Care Act, hospitals, Medicaid|

MedPAC Meets

Last week the independent agency that advises Congress on Medicare payment issues met for two days in Washington, D.C. Among the issues on the agenda of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission were: payments for hospital inpatient and outpatient services, ambulatory surgery centers, dialysis facilities, and hospice care payments for post-acute-care providers a unified payment system for post-acute-care services Medicare Advantage Medicare Part B and Part D payments Medicare-covered primary care services implementation of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 Go here for links to the issue briefs and presentations used at the MedPAC meeting and for a [...]

iqtsupport2017-01-19T06:00:38-05:00January 19, 2017|hospitals, Medicare, Medicare regulations, MedPAC|

Urban Hospitals in ACOS Better at Reducing Some Readmissions Rates

A new study has found that hospitals located in metropolitan areas that participate in accountable care organizations are doing a better job than other hospitals of reducing 30-day readmissions rates for Medicare patients who originally were discharged into skilled nursing facilities. It appears this improved performance can be attributed to two things: better discharge planning and better coordination with the skilled nursing facilities. To learn more go here to see the study “ACO-Affiliated Hospitals Reduced Rehospitalizations from Skilled Nursing Facilities Faster Than Other Hospitals.”

iqtsupport2017-01-17T06:00:47-05:00January 17, 2017|Accountable Care Organization, ACO, hospitals, Medicare|

Weighing the Impact of ACA Repeal

How might repeal of the Affordable Care Act affect the financial health of different kinds of hospitals? The New York Times recently took a look at how the 2010 reform law’s repeal would affect two Pennsylvania health systems: the Temple University Health System, led by a heavily Medicaid-dependent safety-net hospital located in one of the poorest communities in the country; and Main Line Health, a non-profit organization with several hospitals all located in affluent communities. See what the Times found here.

iqtsupport2017-01-09T06:00:13-05:00January 9, 2017|Affordable Care Act, hospitals, Medicaid|