More companies are sending their retirees into private insurance exchanges for their retiree health coverage. That may result in retirees paying more out of pocket.
Both IBM and Time Warner recently announced plans to move retirees who are of Medicare-eligibility age to private exchanges. They will receive a fixed amount of money from companies and choose among health plans—including Medicare supplemental and Medicare Advantage plans, offered through the private marketplaces.
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A small group of healthcare providers took to the op-ed pages of the New York Times to press their case that the business practices of group purchasing organizations are causing drug shortages.
The group, which is called Physicians Against Drug Shortages, is made up of about seven physicians, a pharmacist and a long-time critic of the GPO industry who say their aim is to restore the supply of generic drugs that have had shortages.
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Serious and potentially fatal dental infections are the cause of a growing number of hospitalizations, according to a study in the September edition of the Journal of Endodontics.
The study covered a nine-year period, from 2000 to 2008, using data from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample. The NIS is the largest publicly available all-payer inpatient-care database in America.
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U.S. District Judge Mary Rowland asked the defendant how he was doing today.
“I've had better days, your honor,” replied Dike Ajiri, CEO of Mobile Doctors, a Chicago-based firm providing home health services in six states.
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Larger independent physician groups with “strong primary-care orientations” and where doctors have accepted greater financial risk deliver better quality care for Medicare beneficiaries at lower cost, according to a report in JAMA Internal Medicine.
Researchers with Harvard Medical School's healthcare policy department studied 2009 Medicare claims for almost 4.3 million beneficiaries and compared spending and quality measures for small (one to 10 doctors), medium-to-large and hospital-based physician groups. Quality measures included 30-day hospital readmissions, and mammography, diabetes and cholesterol screening for the appropriate patients.
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A large North Carolina hospital and a suburban Chicago system are the latest to trim their payrolls and point to revenue pressure from the federal healthcare reform law as a primary cause.
At Mission Hospital in Asheville, N.C., the belt-tightening hits the C-suite, including the CEO's salary.
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Boehner
The New York Times ran a quietly subversive news story Wednesday about how members of Congress and their aides will receive health coverage under the Office of Personnel Management's new proposed rule interpreting a controversial Obamacare provision.
During the drafting of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), an opponent of the legislation, insisted that members of Congress and their staffers should have to buy their coverage from the state health insurance exchanges the same way millions of other Americans would get it—rather than getting it through the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program as they do now. It was a commendable idea that few members of Congress probably thought through.
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Stark
The healthcare world is populated by scores of legal experts who strive to keep up with the sprawling compendium of statutes, regulations and legal advisories known collectively as the “Stark law.” But the law's father, Fortney “Pete” Stark, is not one of them.
Stark, in fact, says he would favor repealing the law as it currently exists and getting back to the law's initial intent.
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It's Christmas in July for Medicare-participating physicians—though the gift is far from being delivered. On Wednesday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously passed bipartisan legislation to repeal Medicare's sustainable growth-rate formula and replace it with a stable system of payments to the nation's physicians.
For years, Congress has waited until the end of the calendar year to stave off a steep Medicare payment cut to physicians with a temporary fix.
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The American Nurses Association wants the federal government to require insurers selling plans on state insurance exchanges to have at least a certain percentage of advanced practice registered nurses in their provider networks.
The ANA proposed the minimum level would be equal to 10% of the number of APRNs who independently bill Medicare Part B in a state.
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Greater proportions of not-for-profit and government hospitals than for-profit hospitals qualified for at least one category of Medicare payment adjustments last year, according to new findings from the Government Accountability Office.
About 97% of government-owned hospitals and 90% of not-for-profit hospitals paid by the Medicare program received at least one form of increased payment to the standard inpatient prospective-payment system last year.
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