Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
White House Cracks Down On Hospitals Defying Price Disclosure Rules
The Wall Street Journal: Hospitals Face Steeper Fines For Shunning Federal Price-Disclosure Rules
The Biden administration on Tuesday finalized a regulation that will sharply increase the financial penalties for larger hospitals that don’t make their prices public. The new rule, which will take effect at the start of 2022, will also crack down on practices that made hospitals’ prices hard to find and access, including the use of special coding embedded in hospital webpages that prevents Alphabet Inc.’s GOOG 1.45% Google and other search engines from displaying price pages in search results. (Mathews and Evans, 11/2)
In other health care industry news —
Modern Healthcare: CMS To Boost Pay For Home Health, Hospital Outpatient Services
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is boosting payment for hospital outpatient services and home health and reducing reimbursement for physicians next year, according to a trio of final rules published Tuesday. Hospital-owned outpatient and ambulatory surgery center payment rates will each increase by 2%. Medicare home health reimbursement rates will increase by 2.6%, which the CMS expects to increase payments by $465 million. The agency will reduce the physician fee schedule conversation factor by $1.30 to $33.59 as the temporary reimbursement boost provided by the Consolidated Appropriations Act expires. But the CMS is expanding reimbursement for telehealth services that treat mental health issues. (Kacik, 11/2)
Modern Healthcare: TeamHealth Fires Back At UnitedHealth
TeamHealth's claims that UnitedHealthcare shortchanged 11,500 claims worth $10.5 million went forward in Clark County, Nevada District Court on Tuesday, with the lawsuit's complaints mirroring those of nine other cases the private equity-backed provider has pending against the nation's largest insurer, all accusing UnitedHealthcare of underpaying its bills by tens of millions of dollars. UnitedHealthcare's most recent federal suit is simply an attempt to distract from the ongoing case in Las Vegas, TeamHealth wrote in an email. In the run-up to the trial, the insurer tried to raise upcoding as a defense, but the court dismissed the charge, the company said. (Tepper, 11/2)
The Boston Globe: Providence-Based Mental Health Group Receives $100m Grant To Expand Services To Young People Of Color
The Steve Fund, a nonprofit focused on supporting the mental health and emotional well-being of young people of color, announced it had received $100 million in funding through a new partnership with Sony Corporation of America. The funding will be spread over the course of three years, and will be used to dramatically expand the fund’s digital technology and to scale the fund’s services to students, families, and professionals across the country. The donation comes from Sony’s Global Social Justice Fund, which wasestablished in June 2020. A spokesperson was not immediately available to comment. (Gagosz, 11/2)
Modern Healthcare: Geisinger Settles Medicare False Claims For $18.5 Million
Geisinger will pay $18.5 million to settle false claims it filed to Medicare for hospice and home health services, the Justice Department announced Monday. Geisinger voluntarily reported the billing mistakes its Geisinger Community Health Services unit committed between 2012 and 2017. Claims regarding physician certifications of terminal illnesses, patients' elections to enter hospice and in-person physician interactions with home health patients violated Medicare law, according to the Justice Department. (Kacik, 11/2)
WLRN 91.3 FM: Two Palm Beach Providers Integrate Mental Health Services Into Primary Pediatric Care
A pediatric practice and a counseling center in Palm Beach County are teaming up to make sure their patients are physically and mentally healthy. That's especially important now, as the pandemic has worsened stress and anxiety for many children. “As mental health professionals, we can’t do it all," said Renee Layman, CEO and president of the Center for Child Counseling in Palm Beach Gardens. “We also know that we don’t have to wait for a child to fall apart and have a mental health diagnosis before we do something." (Brutus, 11/2)
