Medicare

Medicare Program Reduced Readmissions

Medicare’s hospital readmissions reduction program has resulted in a reduction of avoidable hospital readmissions. Or so concludes a new study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. According to the study, which included an analysis of 15 million patient discharges beween 2000 and 2013, readmissions declined after Medicare introduced the program and the hospitals with the poorest performance prior to the program’s launch experienced the greatest improvement in reducing avoidable readmissions. To learn more, read the study “Readmission Rates After Passage of the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program: A Pre–Post Analysis” here, on the web site of the Annals of Internal [...]

2017-01-06T06:00:49-05:00January 6, 2017|Medicare|

New Medicare Payments to Help With High-Need Patients

New Medicare payment practices that took effect on January 1 will improve payments to physicians who care for high-need patients in the hope that those enhanced payments will improve the care such seniors receive. Among those improved payments are: payments to physicians for the time they spend working with specialists, families, pharmacists, caregivers, and others to coordinate services for seriously ill patients improved payments for time spent coordinating seniors’ transitions between different care settings and home and connecting those patients with additional resources separate payments to perform cognitive impairment assessments payments for time physicians spend reviewing patient records and talking [...]

2017-01-03T06:00:14-05:00January 3, 2017|Medicare|
Go to Top