Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Health Care Nonprofits' Cash Reserves Fell To 10-Year Low, Report Says
Healthcare Dive: Nonprofits’ Cash On Hand Hit 10-Year Low In 2023: Report
U.S. nonprofit hospitals and health systems’ median days of cash on hand hit a 10-year low in 2023, falling below 200 days for the first time in a decade, according to a report from S&P Global Ratings. Cash flow did not meaningfully improve from 2022 to 2023, the report said. However, operating expenses grew only modestly at 5%, following a steep 17% growth rate in 2022. (Vogel, 8/12)
Modern Healthcare: ACO REACH Model Revised To Fix Medicare Spending: CMS
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is making changes to its largest accountable care organization experiment to ensure it’s actually saving money. In a notice published on its website Aug. 1, CMS outlines a slew of planned updates to the ACO Realizing Equity, Access and Community Health, or ACO REACH, model in 2025. (Early, 8/12)
Modern Healthcare: Home Health, Home Care Hiring Improves Amid Better Medicaid Pay
Hiring in home health and home care is bouncing back from the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic when thousands of workers left the industry. The turnaround in hiring comes as demand for in-home care is rising and hospitals struggle to discharge patients to home health or skilled nursing facilities due to staffing shortages. Still, uncertainty over Medicare pay rates next year could make it harder for companies to raise wages that are helping attract workers. (Eastabrook, 8/12)
KFF Health News and InvestigateTV: Watch: How Patients Get Charged Hospital Prices For Doctor’s Office Care
For five years, Caren Blanzy received the same treatment at the same medical office in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The regular injections gave her relief from involuntary muscle contractions caused by a neurological disorder, she said. Her insurance picked up the tab. Then, the health system that owns her doctor’s office changed how it billed for her treatment — no longer coding it as an office visit, but instead as outpatient hospital services. That change meant Blanzy owed more than $1,100 for one treatment. She said she stopped receiving injections because she could no longer afford them. (Jackman, 8/13)
AP: How To Get Relief From Unexpectedly High Medical Bills
Even if you don’t qualify for charity care or you’re not sure your bills are covered by the No Surprises Act, you may be able to reduce the charges. Medical billing is notoriously byzantine and rife with errors. Anytime you receive a bill, ask the hospital or healthcare provider for an itemized bill that includes the billing codes of all the care you received. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) mandates that providers share this information. (Lewis, 8/12)
Stat: Why U.S. Health Care Cybersecurity Laws Are Better At Protecting A Corpse’s Privacy Than Patients’ Lives
Two days into a cyberattack on his hospital system, Nate Couture reached the end of his cyber incident plan. “We make these incident response plans and we feel great about them,” Couture, the University of Vermont Health Network chief information security officer, told other heath care cyber professionals at a recent conference. “At the end of them, they have a box that usually says something like, ‘And then IT recovers the systems.’” But it would be 24 more days from where the plan ended until the Vermont health system was able to bring its electronic medical record system back online. It would be 110 days until they finished restoring software applications. And more than 200 days later, they’d still be dealing with the backlog of paper records. (Trang, 8/13)
Axios: States Are Writing Their Own Rules For AI In Health Care
In the absence of federal guardrails on artificial intelligence in health care, state governments are figuring out their own rules of the road. Artificial intelligence is health care's biggest wild card. But it's drawing hundreds of millions of dollars in investment, and health providers and drug developers are already using it — essentially without oversight. (Goldman, 8/12)
