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President signs SGR fix bill MedPageToday.com Share     President Obama signed into law a bill that shelved the scheduled 25 percent cut in Medicare payment rates and guarantees physicians a stable Medicare reimbursement through 2011. Congress recently passed the $15 billion bill. The one-year fix is the fifth and longest extension of Medicare physician payment rates passed by Congress this year. And it essentially puts doctors back in the yearly "last-minute-extension" cycle Congress has followed for most of the past decade. More
Virginia judge's ruling won't stop health care reform MedCityNews.com Share
Health care reform rolls on despite a Virginia judge’s ruling that its individual mandate is unconstitutional, Dept. of Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius tells a Boston audience. Health & Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius told a Boston audience last week that health care reform is moving ahead despite a Virginia judge’s ruling that a portion of the law is unconstitutional. More Extreme makeover for health care next year? PwC publishes its top health industry issues for 2011 RedOrbit Share
Health organizations will undergo a strategy makeover in 2011 as they react to new rules and payment models, continuing cost pressures and new customer demands, according to the Top Health Industry Issues of 2011, published today by PwC's Health Research Institute. But in a recent nationwide survey of 1,000 U.S. adults, PwC found that consumers don't fully understand or buy-in to all the changes. More Study predicts decrease in health care costs Kansas City InfoZine Share
Families could start paying less and getting more when it comes to health insurance, according to a study released last week by the Commonwealth Fund. But whether that comes true depends on how the health care bill is put into effect, the study said. “For more than a decade, families with job-based insurance have been sacrificing wages to hold on to health insurance,” said Cathy Schoen, Commonwealth Fund senior vice president of research. “The good news is that the Affordable Care Act reforms provide a foundation to improve coverage and slow health-care cost growth in the future.” More Loss of individual mandate might not damage health care reform Kansas City Star Share
Some supporters of the nation’s health care reform law offered a surprising new argument last week: The death of the law’s individual mandate might actually be a good thing. The mandate — a requirement that virtually everyone buy health insurance by 2014 — is clearly the most unpopular and legally difficult part of the health care package. More
Removing part of health care law could hurt hospitals Anniston Star Share
With the constitutionality of health care reform’s health insurance mandate in question, anticipated benefits of the law could collapse, harming hospitals along the way, according to an Anniston Star survey of hospital administrators and statewide experts. U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson in Virginia last Monday struck down the health insurance requirement as unconstitutional, disagreeing with the government that the Commerce Clause of the Constitution allows for the regulation of a person’s decision not to buy a product. The Commerce Clause grants Congress the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among states. The decision will not immediately affect the law because the insurance coverage mandate will not be implemented until 2014. Also, Hudson and some law experts have said the final decision on the coverage mandate will likely be up to the Supreme Court. More For impatient patients, an urgent-care boomlet Crain's New York Business Share
Urgent-care centers are springing up around Manhattan, a trend driven by emergency department doctors who see potential profit in steering New Yorkers clear of hospitals. Many impatient New Yorkers, they bet, would rather pay $150 to be treated within an hour than wait much longer than that in a hospital emergency room. More Dallas hospital's penicillin for wait times Dallas Business Journal Share
Medical City Dallas and Medical City Children’s Hospital have a new treatment for emergency room wait times. The hospitals became concerned when the 2010 Emergency Department Pulse Report said patients on average wait four hours and seven minutes at emergency rooms across the nation. Medical City devised a plan to keep wait times at 30 minutes or less. More Medicare Advantage plans not complying with CMS language requirements Healthcare Payer News Share
A recent survey by the National Senior Citizens Law Center found that many Medicare Advantage plans and Medicare Part D plans are not publishing marketing materials in Spanish as required by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid under their provider contracts. CMS requires MA plans to make marketing and plan materials available in any language that is the primary of more than 10 percent of the population in specific market areas. These materials must be posted on the plans’ websites. More |
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