We don’t often report on early proposals from federal lawmakers, but this one captured our attention. It seems the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee have a bipartisan draft proposal to repeal the Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula and freeze current payment levels for 10 years. (“Key Committees Release Bipartisan […]
This week’s newsletter comes a few days earlier than usual because we want our subscribers to have a full picture of the impact of the government shutdown on public health. Thanks to the American Health Lawyers Association, we can present a summary. The shutdown began on October 1, resulting from the Senate’s vote to […]
Employer-sponsored health insurance premiums rose a modest four percent for family coverage and five percent for individual coverage, according to a recent report from the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research & Educational Trust (HRET). Kaiser and HRET conduct an annual survey of non-federal public and private employers with three or more workers—the report shows […]
Medicare inpatient operating payment rates for general acute care hospitals that successfully participate in the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) Program will increase by 0.7 percent in FY 2014. For the 3,400 hospitals that participate in the inpatient prospective payment system (IPPS), this represents an approximate increase of $1.2 billion in 2014. CMS confirmed the […]
Medicare has announced that this October more than 2,000 hospitals will have payments reduced because of high readmission rates. The program that began last October had up to a one percent penalty during its first year; year two beginning October 1 will have a maximum penalty of two percent. Medicare estimates the fines will amount […]
The first-year report card for the Medicare Pioneer Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) shows that more plans saved money than lost, but also that some providers have decided to either exit the program or take a step back and move to the less risky traditional shared-savings model. The Pioneer ACO model was designed for more advanced, […]
We know that many board members view their quality oversight role as elusive—and daunting. It may help to read about the broader context within which policy makers discuss various approaches to measuring quality across the organization. Last week, we featured new criteria for measuring and proving “value.” Today, we focus on policy recommendations to […]
Patient satisfaction assessments represent 30 percent of the bonuses and penalties given to hospitals during the first year of Medicare’s value-based purchasing, a component of the health reform law. But a new study from Johns Hopkins University suggests that patient satisfaction is not necessarily a good indicator of quality care. The study analyzed patient […]
Deloitte Center for Health Solutions recently released results of its 2013 Survey of U.S. Physicians, and the findings suggest that physicians see value in some provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and that they have a sense that health care is moving in the right direction. The survey was sent to 20,000 physicians and […]
Moving to risk-bearing, performance-based contracts may be outside the current experience of many hospitals. But given the changes today and on the horizon, providers must reduce their reliance on fee-for-service payment and begin to take on value-based contracts. “ . . . all hospitals and health systems must prepare for the rapidly approaching transformation. Status […]