Board members overseeing risk management and compliance can now view the chief healthcare regulatory agency’s 2016 Work Plan, a blueprint of projected investigations over the coming year. The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued its work plan in early November and noted that it “will expand its focus […]
Hospital-physician practice integration has been shown to increase outpatient prices in some metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) according to a national analysis of the effect of such deals over several years. The results were published in JAMA Internal Medicine in mid October. The study comprised practices in 240 MSAs with seven million enrollees in preferred […]
An emerging trend among not-for-profit hospitals positions them well for population health management but also carries significant credit risks, say Moody’s Investors Service analysts in a recent report. The trend is to enter the commercial health insurance business to both improve care management and gain market share, the analysts wrote. The effect on credit […]
Mortality rates decreased among patients admitted for acute myocardial infarction (AMI), congestive heart failure (CHF), stroke and pneumonia from 2002 to 2012, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The decline occurred for both men and women, and for Medicare-aged and younger patients. The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) […]
Medicare’s inpatient prospective payments (IPPS) will increase 0.9 percent in fiscal year (FY) 2016, down from the projected 1.1 percent increase noted by CMS in April this year. Capital payments also will increase by 2.3 percent in FY 2016. The final rule was released July 31 and will take effect October 1. According to […]
Authors of a new study speculate that combined improvements in health, patient utilization patterns for health care, and healthcare delivery have dramatically reduced hospital utilization and per-beneficiary spending, while mortality declined among all Medicare fee-for-service enrollees, over the last 15 years. The research was published online in the Journal of the American Medical Association and […]
Primary care physicians in accountable care organization (ACO) practices, on average, received similar compensation arrangements to those of physicians not in ACOs, and did not have substantial risk for primary care costs, according to a study published in the Annals of Family Medicine and reported in HFMA Weekly News. On average, compensation for ACO […]
Effective collaboration between the clinical and financial leaders of healthcare organizations is increasingly necessary, according to a recently published joint report from the American Association for Physician Leadership and the Healthcare Financial Management Association. Providers, insurers, regulators and the public recognize the need for greater value in health care—that is, improved quality and lower […]
CMS has added a star-rating system on its Hospital Compare website to help Medicare beneficiaries’ choose a hospital and gauge the quality of the care it provides. A recently released CMS fact sheet described the initiative: “CMS believes that star ratings spotlight excellence in health care quality and make it easier for consumers to […]
As payment moves from volume to value, many hospitals/health systems have begun to employ physicians as a business strategy, seeking to align with physicians around common goals and objectives. The Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) reports, however, “many health systems have found that alignment does not automatically follow employment and that the employment model can […]