Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Medicare To Allow Ambulances To Take Patients To Urgent Care, Doctors' Offices Instead Of Emergency Room
The Associated Press: Medicare Ambulance Rides May No Longer End Up At ER
Medicare wants to change how it pays for emergency ambulance services to give seniors more options besides going to a hospital emergency department, officials said Thursday. Other options could include going to an urgent care center, a doctor's office, or even treatment at home under supervision of a doctor via telehealth links. It's just a pilot project for now, but if adopted nationwide the idea could save Medicare more than $500 million a year and allow local fire departments and ambulance services to focus the time and energy of first responders on the most serious emergencies. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 2/14)
Modern Healthcare: Ambulance Providers Will Be Paid For Trips To Alternative Sites, Telemedicine
The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation will conduct an experiment on a new payment model for Medicare to create new incentives on emergency transport and care. The model would apply to Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries. Currently Medicare pays for ambulance services to take patients to an emergency room, which Trump administration officials say hinders creation of a value-based system. "A payment system that only pays first responders to take people to the hospital creates the wrong incentive," said Adam Boehler, director of CMMI, at an event at a Washington, D.C., fire station on Thursday. "That leads to unnecessary ER visits and hospitalizations and ultimately that harms patients." (King, 2/14)
