Medicare and post-acute care

MedPAC Posts Annual Data Book

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission has published its annual data book Health Care Spending and the Medicare Program. The book provides information on national health care and Medicare spending, Medicare beneficiary demographics, and data on dual-eligible beneficiaries, quality of care in the Medicare program, and Medicare beneficiary and other payer liabilities. MedPAC presents its data in 11 sections: national health care and Medicare spending Medicare beneficiary demographics Medicare beneficiary and other payer financial liability dual-eligible beneficiaries alternative payer models acute inpatient services – general acute-care hospitals and inpatient psychiatric hospitals ambulatory care – physicians and other health professionals, hospital outpatient [...]

joe2024-07-17T12:02:47+00:00July 17, 2024|Alternative payment models, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, health equity, hospitals, Medicaid, Medicare, Medicare post-acute care, post-acute care, Telehealth|

Feds Looking to Bundle Medicare Post-Acute Payments?

Bring us your ideas for bundling Medicare post-acute-care payments, the head of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation recently told a gathering of hospital officials in Washington, D.C. As reported by Fierce Healthcare, CMMI director Adam Boehler told hospital officials that Now is the time to bring us ideas. We’re really in listening mode…I think there’s been a lot of intrigue and interest we’ve heard from people. So we’re gathering stakeholder input there on that and it’s a great time to give us thoughts on where we can lower costs. Learn more from the Fierce Healthcare article "CMMI's Adam [...]

admin2019-04-15T06:00:16+00:00April 15, 2019|Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, CMMI, Medicare, Medicare post-acute care, post-acute care|

Mixed Verdict: Home Health Leads to More Readmissions But Lower Costs

Readmission rates are greater for patients discharged from hospitals to home health care than they are for those discharged to skilled nursing facilities but home health services cost so much less than nursing homes that home health saves money even with the higher numbers of hospital readmissions. This is one of the major findings of a new study comparing differences in outcomes for patients who are admitted to skilled nursing facilities upon discharge from the hospital to those for patients who go direct home and receive home health services. The study also found no meaningful differences in patient mortality or [...]

admin2019-03-22T06:00:57+00:00March 22, 2019|Alternative payment models, hospitals, Medicare, Medicare post-acute care, Medicare reimbursement policy|

MedPAC Meets

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission met last week in Washington, D.C. to address a number of Medicare reimbursement-related issues. Among the subjects on MedPAC’s agenda were: using payments to ensure appropriate access to and use of hospital emergency department services uniform outcome measures for post-acute care applying MedPAC’s principles for measuring quality: hospital quality incentives Medicare coverage policy and use of low-value care long-term issues confronting Medicare accountable care organizations managed care plans for dual-eligible beneficiaries While MedPAC’s policy and payment recommendations are not binding on Congress or the administration, its views are respected and influential and often become the [...]

admin2018-04-09T06:00:21+00:00April 9, 2018|Accountable Care Organization, Medicare, Medicare post-acute care, Medicare regulations, MedPAC|