Both MedPAC and HHS released recommendations for hospital payments during the last week. MedPAC (the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission), the primary Medicare advisory group to Congress, finalized its recommendation for a 3.25 percent increase in acute care hospital rates in 2016. HHS (Department of Health and Human Services) set specific goals for the […]
Moody’s Investors Service expects that the fundamental business, financial and economic conditions in the healthcare sector will remain weak over the next 12 to 18 months, contributing to its negative outlook for the sector in 2015. (Cash Flow Settling into Low Level of Growth Amid Negative Outlook, 2015 Outlook, Moody’s Investors Service, December 2014) […]
Last week we presented the Healthcare Financial Management Association’s (HFMA) Value Project strategies for value transformation. To make the strategies actionable, we now present the tactics identified by the Value Project. These tactics provide a roadmap that enables boards and executives to plot their organizations’ course to value transformation. To recap, organizations cross four […]
Organizations cross four major “summits” to achieve the ACA’s Triple Aim of improving the patient experience, advancing population health and lowering the total cost of care, according to the Healthcare Care Financial Management Association (HFMA). Through its Value Project, HFMA worked with a diverse group of 35 hospitals and health systems to identify and detail […]
Note: iProtean will observe the holidays beginning December 24 and will resume on January 7, 2015. We wish everyone a very happy holiday season! Although there has been a drop in numbers of uninsured patients following the rollout of the Affordable Care Act, the remaining uninsured have driven up “uncompensated care” to an all […]
Two recent reports on hospital quality and growth in healthcare spending suggest that healthcare providers are making meaningful systemic changes that are improving the value of U.S. health care, according to a Healthcare Financial Management (HFMA) senior executive. The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) reported a 17 percent decline in the rate […]
Medicare Shared Savings Program Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) would have three extra years before they could be punished for poor performance, according to a new proposal from CMS. The proposal is one of dozens of changes to rules governing ACOs that CMS wants to implement. ACOs are affiliations of doctors, hospitals and other providers […]
Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) rates will increase by 2.3 percent and ambulatory surgical center (ASC) rates will increase by 1.4 percent in 2015, according to the final rule released by CMS in late October. The rate increases are more than originally proposed by CMS and are expected to affect more than 4,000 hospitals […]
Rising prices, not increased utilization, drove increased spending on acute inpatient care, outpatient care and brand prescriptions, according to the Health Care Cost Institute’s 2013 Health Care Cost and Utilization Report. Healthcare spending increased an average 3.9 percent in 2013. Since 2010, health spending per insured person has grown by an average of 3.9 […]
A new national scorecard on payment reform shows commercial health plans have dramatically shifted how they pay physicians and hospitals, with 40 percent of their payments “value-oriented” in 2014, according to the Catalyst for Payment Reform (CPR). This means that two-fifths of commercial health insurance payments were no longer traditional fee-for-service. Some financial experts […]