The second-largest group purchasing organization (GPO) in U.S. healthcare is urging the IRS to formally block medical device manufacturers from tucking the cost of the impending 2.3 percent excise tax into the prices they charge hospitals for their products.
What started as a relative trickle of reimbursement cuts in the early part of the decade has expanded into a deluge in the last 18 months.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) expects operating payments to acute are hospitals to increase by about 0.9 percent, or $175 million, in 2013, according to a proposed rule.
Cost trends in U.S. healthcare consistently increase at about 2.5 percentage points faster than the general rate of inflation – clearly an unsustainable rate, according to an April report from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.
Greater involvement of patients, clinicians and others in the healthcare community in developing clinical comparative effectiveness research (CER) studies could reduce clinical uncertainty, speed adoption of meaningful findings and make such studies more useful in clinical decision-making, according to an article published in the April 18 issue of the
Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
A majority of young physicians are pessimistic about the future of the U.S. healthcare system, with concerns about healthcare reform and declining reimbursement the main sources of the gloomy outlook, according to an online survey commissioned by The Physicians Foundation.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has announced a proposed rule that would establish a unique health plan identifier under HIPAA. The proposed rule also delays required compliance by one year—from Oct. 1, 2013, to Oct. 1, 2014—for new codes used to classify diseases and health problems.
With projections of long-term deficits dependent on projection of healthcare costs, the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) has updated its HealthCare Budget Deficit Calculator to show what long-term budget deficits would look like if the U.S. did not pay as much for healthcare. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t look good.
Policymakers should begin planning now for ways to make the coming transition to ICD-11 as tolerable as possible for the healthcare and payment community, according to an article in the March edition of Health Affairs.
The Supreme Court took its final lap in the three-day oral arguments in the case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).
The Supreme Court justices and orators on behalf of
Department of Health and Human Services v Florida parties laced up their debating gloves as they entered into the second day of oral arguments on the case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).
The wait is over! The Supreme Court launched its oral argument marathon on Monday to hear the case on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).
The American Medical Association (AMA) applauded the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s decision to repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), a panel which, according to AMA President-elect Jeremy Lazarus, MD, would have “too little accountability and the power to make indiscriminate cuts that adversely affect access to healthcare for patients.”
Since agreeing in November 2011 to consider several constitutionality issues relating to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments March 26-28 on cases against the legislation. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation released a report in January explaining the issues raised by the cases pending before the Supreme Court and considered the potential effects of the court’s decisions.
Forty-nine states and Washington, D.C., already have taken action supporting the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s (PPACA) implementation, such as passing legislation, issuing regulations or other guidance, or actively reviewing insurer filings, according to an issue brief from Commonwealth Fund.
As a means to dismember conflicts of interest within medicine, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) now requires greater financial transparency between industry and physicians. Thanks to the Sunshine Act included as a provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, industry will be required to divulge payments to physicians and academic medical centers on public websites. Two viewpoints published online Feb. 14 in the
Journal of the American Medical Association questioned the rule’s feasibility and benefit.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that the National Health Service Corps has awarded $9.1 million to students in 30 states who are preparing to become primary care providers.
Transaction standards were first written into HIPAA legislation in 2000 to create standardized routes for healthcare organizations to exchange financial and administrative data, but they left too much room for interpretation and the result has been chaotic, according to a Jan. 17 article in the Journal of the American Health Information Management Association.
An article published in the February issue of Health Affairs, "Colorado’s Health Insurance Exchange: How One State Has So Far Forged A Bipartisan Path Through The Partisan Wilderness," details the western state’s experience.
Allowing people to purchase over-the-counter (OTC) medications at local drugstores provides the U.S. healthcare system $102 billion in profits annually, and each dollar spent on OTCs saves $6 to $7 for the healthcare system, according to a white paper released Jan. 31 by Consumer Healthcare Products Association. Without OTCs, an additional 56,000 medical practitioners would be needed to assist with the increase in office visits, which would not bode well for the current physician shortage.
