- The Obama administration announced a one-year delay—until next November—of online enrollment for small businesses looking to purchase coverage for their workers through the HealthCare.gov website serving 36 states. But they will still be able to sign their workers up for coverage immediately through an insurer, agent or broker. Many states running their own exchanges are going ahead with online enrollment in the Small Business Health Options Program for 2014. The federal SHOP delay is intended to allow small employers to sign up for coverage offline while the CMS continues to work on the troubled HealthCare.gov website. Employers can buy coverage at any time during the year, with no open enrollment deadline. Small businesses will have until Dec. 23 to sign up their employees for SHOP coverage effective Jan. 1, 2014.
Late News: Obama administration announces delay of online enrollment for small businesses, and other news
- The CMS is moving forward with a proposal to pay primary-care physicians for complex chronic-care management services provided outside of face-to-face office visits. The CMS included the policy in a final rule on physician pay posted Nov. 27, and it's set to begin in 2015. “We believe that successful efforts to improve chronic-care management for these patients could improve the quality of care while simultaneously decreasing costs, through reductions in hospitalizations, use of post-acute care services and emergency department visits,” Jonathan Blum, principal deputy administrator at the CMS, said in a statement. Overall, the CMS projects that total payments under the fee schedule in 2014 will be approximately $87 billion, up from $80 billion in 2012. The American Medical Association said it hopes the payment rule “serves as an urgent reminder to Congress that there are just 34 days before physicians who care for Medicare patients will face a steep payment cut of about 24% due to the short-sighted, fatally flawed Medicare payment formula—the SGR.”
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