The dream of providers' getting budgetary credit for health system savings that their efforts produce is alive on Capitol Hill, but it may be on life support until after the election.
The seemingly esoteric budget question could have very real effects. For instance, crediting providers for achieving some spending reductions—for example, by reducing hospital-acquired infection rates—could reduce the need for the 2% across-the-board Medicare cuts next year.
It's a long-sought change in congressional health budget cost estimating or “scoring,” which advocates of the 2010 healthcare overhaul failed to obtain (and which could have significantly improved the projected costs of that legislation). But Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), a member of the committee with primary jurisdiction over Medicare, is continuing to push for the change as part of a bipartisan group of senators searching for common ground on long-term federal debt reduction.
Read more »
Permalink | Post a Comment
Refreshed after (another) brief recess, House members will return to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to a summer session that includes some significant healthcare votes.
First, the lower chamber will consider House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton's (R-Mich.) FDA bill that Upton's panel passed earlier this month. Shortly after, House Republicans will continue to chip away at the Affordable Care Act while the country awaits a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court on whether the law—in whole or in part—will stand.
Read more »
Permalink | Post a Comment
The CMS offered guidance to healthcare providers interested in models 2, 3 and 4 of the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Initiative in a document the agency posted to its website Wednesday (PDF).
Last August, the CMS laid out four models for its Medicare bundled payments initiative, including model No. 1, which relates solely to inpatient stays and allows hospitals and physicians to share gains resulting from better coordinated care. Program applications were due last fall, and the CMS Innovation Center has yet to announce the awardees. “We are completing our review of model number 1, which is a simple gain-sharing model, and will be coming forth with that information relatively soon,” Dr. Richard Gilfillan, the CMS Innovation Center director, told Modern Healthcare this week during a Center for American Progress discussion on delivery innovations.
Read more »
Permalink | Post a Comment
Michigan and Nevada on Friday became the latest states to receive Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan, or CO-OP, loans from the CMS, bringing the award total to more than $982 million for these not-for-profit insurers created by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Directed by customers, CO-OPS are supposed to offer both small businesses and individuals more-affordable health insurance options and will be offered through the health insurance exchanges or in plans outside the exchanges starting on Jan. 1, 2014. The program gives low-interest loans to not-for-profit groups that then establish these entities.
Read more »
Permalink | Post a Comment
What's more endearing than mom and motherhood?
How about a federal law that creates and distributes Happy Mother's Day wishes.
In the latest marketing idea from a White House team still scrambling to improve the public's approval of the healthcare overhaul two years after its enactment, comes a heartwarming description of future benefits the law hopes to offer:
“Happy Mother's Day From
The Affordable Care Act
Being a Mom isn't a pre-existing condition
It's a joy
Prior to the passage of the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies could deny coverage for women with pre-existing conditions like breast cancer or pregnancy, and women could be charged higher premiums simply because of their gender.
Starting in 2014, it will be illegal to deny coverage to anyone with a pre-existing condition, or charge women more than men for health insurance.”
Read more »
Permalink | Post a Comment
A love of government work and family apparently drove HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius' controversial decision to accept an invitation to address a graduating class at one of the nation's highest-profile Roman Catholic universities.
Sebelius accepted an invitation earlier this week to address graduates of the Georgetown Public Policy Institute on May 18. The invitation has spawned protests by Catholic groups upset about a HHS healthcare reform mandate earlier this year that initially required Catholic universities and hospitals to provide birth control coverage to which they view as violating their core moral beliefs.
Read more »
Permalink | Post a Comment
Many of the healthcare polls bouncing around Washington on any given week can potentially give federal policymakers the pulse of the nation on policy matters under consideration. But also buried in these polls are sometimes head-scratching questions and findings.
The latest example came from a telephone health survey of 1,000 Americans released this week by Reader's Digest and the insurer Humana.
Read more »
Permalink | Post a Comment
With the Kentucky Derby just a day away, the nation’s physicians might be in a betting mood. But by now, doctors know better than to raise their hopes that the sustainable growth rate formula will be repealed—before the November elections, during the lame-duck session or pretty much at any point during their lifetimes.
Read more »
Permalink | Post a Comment
