Policy Updates

Coronavirus Update for Tuesday, October 20

The following is the latest COVID-19 information from the federal government as of 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, October 20. Provider Relief Fund HHS has updated its Provider Relief Fund FAQ with a new question that appears on page 46 and is marked “Added 10/15/2020.” The new question is “An organization has prescription sales as part of its revenue. Can these sales be captured in the data submitted as a part of revenue from patient care?” The answer is “Generally no, prescriptions sale revenue may not be captured as part of revenue from patient care. Only patient care revenues from providing [...]

iqtsupport2020-10-21T06:33:59-04:00October 21, 2020|Coronavirus, COVID-19|

Coronvirus Update for Tuesday, October 20

The following is the latest COVID-19 information from the federal government as of 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, October 20. Provider Relief Fund HHS has updated its Provider Relief Fund FAQ with a new question that appears on page 46 and is marked “Added 10/15/2020.” The new question is “An organization has prescription sales as part of its revenue. Can these sales be captured in the data submitted as a part of revenue from patient care?” The answer is “Generally no, prescriptions sale revenue may not be captured as part of revenue from patient care. Only patient care revenues from providing [...]

iqtsupport2020-10-21T06:00:32-04:00October 21, 2020|Coronavirus, COVID-19|

States Expect Medicaid Enrollment, Spending to Rise in FY 2021

States expect to see their Medicaid enrollment and spending rise in FY 2021, driven by increases in unemployment resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and maintenance-of-effort requirements in legislation enacted earlier this year. A Kaiser Family Foundation survey of state Medicaid directors found that those officials expect their Medicaid enrollment to rise 8.2 percent in FY 2021 and their Medicaid spending to increase 8.4 percent that same year. Most states expect the 6.2 percentage point increase in federal Medicaid matching funds that was included in the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, passed this March, to expire at the end of 2020. [...]

iqtsupport2020-10-21T06:00:12-04:00October 21, 2020|Medicaid|

Feds Penalizing Wrong Hospitals for Readmissions, Study Finds

Medicare’s hospital readmissions reduction program often penalizes the wrong hospitals for excessive readmissions. Or so concludes a new study published in the journal JAMA Cardiology. According to the study, …the percentage of hospitals that were incorrectly penalized was 10.1% for acute myocardial infarction, 10.9% for heart failure, and 12.3 percent for pneumonia. The study also found that the readmissions reduction program is failing to penalize some hospitals that do deserve penalties based on the program’s standards, writing that …in fiscal year 2019, the percentage of hospitals that should have been penalized by the program, but were not, was 20.9% for [...]

iqtsupport2020-10-20T06:00:30-04:00October 20, 2020|Medicare, Medicare reimbursement policy|

Number of Uninsured Children Rising

The number of uninsured children in the U.S. is rising. Since 2016, the number of uninsured children has risen by approximately 726,000 as the uninsured rate among children rose from 4.7 percent to 5.7 percent in 2019. An increase of 320,000 children between 2018 and 2019 was the largest such increase in more than a decade. Texas accounts for one-third of the four-year increase, or about 243,000 newly uninsured children, with Florida second with 55,000 newly uninsured children. Learn more about the increase in the number of uninsured children in recent years and why it occurred in the report “Children’s [...]

iqtsupport2020-10-19T06:00:16-04:00October 19, 2020|Uncategorized|

Coronavirus Update for Thursday, October 15

The following is the latest COVID-19 information from the federal government as of 3:00 p.m. on Thursday, October 15. Provider Relief Fund Yesterday HHS held a webinar to provide more detailed information to health care providers about its planned $20 billion CARES Act Provider Relief Fund Phase 3 general distribution. It used this toolkit during the webinar. The deadline for applying for a Phase 3 general distribution is November 6. During the webinar, providers that have received Provider Relief Fund general distributions in the past were advised that they need to submit an entirely new application to participate in Phase [...]

iqtsupport2020-10-16T06:00:45-04:00October 16, 2020|Coronavirus, COVID-19|

Coronavirus Update for Wednesday, October 14

The following is the latest COVID-19 information from the federal government as of 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, October 14. Reminder: HHS Webinar on Phase 3 General Distributions HHS will hold a webcast on Thursday, October 15 at 3:00 (eastern) to give providers more information about the Phase 3 general distribution. Go here to register and submit questions. The application deadline for Phase 3 distributions is November 6. Provider Relief Fund The Provider Relief Fund FAQ has been updated with one new question on page 6 that is marked “Added 10/9/2020.” The new question is “Can providers use Provider Relief [...]

iqtsupport2020-10-15T06:00:14-04:00October 15, 2020|Coronavirus, COVID-19|

Coronavirus Update for Friday, October 9

The following is the latest COVID-19 information from the federal government as of 2:15 p.m. on Friday, October 9. Provider Relief Fund Five questions in the Provider Relief Fund FAQ have been modified with updated answers; they can be found on pages 14, 40, 41, 42, and 43. Most address the upcoming Phase 3 general distribution. Providers considering applying for a Phase 3 general distribution should review this new information carefully. The Provider Relief Fund has a new one-page fact sheet on the Phase 3 general distribution. The Provider Relief Fund web page also has introduced the new document “Phase [...]

iqtsupport2020-10-12T06:00:54-04:00October 12, 2020|Coronavirus, COVID-19|

MedPAC Meets

Last week the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission met in Washington, D.C. to discuss a number of Medicare payment issues. The issues on MedPAC’s October agenda were: the skilled nursing facility value-based payment system future research directions in hospice payments Medicare Advantage benchmark policy indirect medical education: current Medicare policy, concerns, and principles for revising the evolution of Medicare’s advanced alternative payment models vertical integration and Medicare payment policy MedPAC is an independent congressional agency that advises Congress on issues involving the Medicare program. While its recommendations are not binding on either Congress or the administration, MedPAC is highly influential in [...]

iqtsupport2020-10-09T06:00:26-04:00October 9, 2020|Alternative payment models, Medicare, Medicare regulations, Medicare reimbursement policy, MedPAC|

Congress Gives Hospitals Medicaid DSH Relief

Medicaid DSH allocations to states will not be reduced right away thanks to a new continuing resolution to fund the federal government through December 11. The Medicare disproportionate share allocation cuts to the states, mandated by the Affordable Care Act but delayed by Congress several times, were delayed again earlier this year but scheduled to take effect on November 11. With the latest continuing resolution, the cuts will be delayed yet another month. Learn more about the delay of Medicaid DSH cuts and other aspects of the continuing resolution that affect hospitals in the Healthcare Dive article “Providers win Medicare [...]

iqtsupport2020-10-08T13:00:57-04:00October 8, 2020|Medicaid disproportionate share, Medicaid DSH|