Report recommends that Congress use Medicare’s influence to push doctors and other providers to work more closely and share in financial risk for care that is too costly.
Medicare Announces Plans To Accelerate Linking Doctor Pay To Quality
The government, in a draft rule, says it will double the penalties and bonuses offered some group practices with 100 or more professionals. It also moves up deadlines for practices with 10 professionals.
Hospitals May Soon Be Reaching For The Stars
Medicare is considering assigning stars or other symbols to hospitals so that patients can compare quality more easily. Hospital groups are wary.
At Hospitals You May Not Get What You Are Charged For
It’s well known that the listed charges hospitals set for surgeries and other procedures — recently spotlighted by Medicare — bear little resemblance to the actual prices most patients end up paying. An analysis by Castlight, a San Francisco company that helps employers and workers compare provider prices, also finds that the hospital charges bear little relationship to […]
Medicare Enhances Doctor-Rating Website
Medicare Thursday added new features to its Physician Compare website as it prepares to start including quality data on thousands of doctors. The federal health care law requires the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to publish performance data on doctors, including how patients rate them, how well the physicians’ medical interventions succeed and how […]
Young Adults Value Health Insurance, Poll Finds
A strong majority of young adults, whose participation in the health law may be key to its success or failure, strongly believe health insurance is important for them and worth the money, according to a new poll. As some states and the federal government prepare new online marketplaces for people to purchase insurance this fall, […]
Panel Tells Congress Medicare Is Unfairly Penalizing Hospitals Serving The Poor
An important feature of the health law designed to bring down the rate of patient readmissions is backfiring on safety-net hospitals, says a report by a congressional advisory agency.
Medicare Data Show Wide Divide In What Hospitals Bill For Outpatient Services
Medicare released average bill charges for 30 hospital outpatient procedures Monday, showing big differences from hospital to hospital in how much they bill patients for the same service. The data come a month after the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services garnered front-page attention for its release of similar information about 100 common hospital inpatient procedures. […]
Immigrants Contribute More To Medicare Than They Take Out, Study Finds
Immigrant workers are helping buttress Medicare’s finances, say researchers, because they contribute tens of billions of dollars a year more than immigrant retirees use in medical services.
Medicare Spending Variations Mostly Due To Health Differences, Study Concludes
The finding challenges the notion that billions could be saved by making the health system more efficient.
Oregon’s Medicaid Lottery: A Participant’s View
Amid the cacophony of expert views about the implications of a landmark study, a Medicaid beneficiary weighs in on the values and shortcomings of public health assistance.
Medicare Lags In Project to Expand Hospice
The 2010 health law called for an experiment to see if allowing patients to continue to have lifesaving treatments when they join hospice would improve their quality of care and save money.
2 Studies Assert Lower Spending Growth Is Due To Structural Health Changes
Two new studies assert that the country’s unusual slowdown in health spending growth rates may be due more to structural changes in the health care system than to the lagging economy, and thus could continue even after business picks up. National health spending grew by 3.9 percent a year between 2009 and 2011, the lowest […]
Bloggers See Own Reflections In Oregon Medicaid Study
This week’s study of Oregon Medicaid recipients has quickly become a Rorschach test for how partisans and health policy wonks view the health care law. To recap, that study compared the health care of the winners and losers of a lottery held by Oregon in 2008 to decide who could enroll in the limited spots in the […]
Patient Satisfaction May Not Be A Good Indicator Of Surgical Quality, Study Finds
You may have found your doctor to be a great communicator, your hospital room clean and quiet and your pain well controlled. Yet a study finds these opinions are not barometers of whether your hospital’s surgical care is any good. The study, led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University medical and public health schools, […]
Doctor-Owned Hospitals Prosper Under Health Law
Even though the 2010 health law stymies their growth, these hospitals are gaining under Medicare’s quality payments programs.
Medicare Effort To Cut Readmissions Isn’t Counting Patients Who Come Back To ER
A study published Tuesday says Medicare may be missing factors that lead to post-hospital health problems because it isn’t counting many discharged patients who come back to the emergency room but aren’t admitted. The study in Annals of Emergency Medicine looked at 11,976 patients discharged from Boston Medical Center, the largest safety net hospital in New […]
Death Rates Rise At Geographically Isolated Hospitals, Study Finds
These critical access hospitals, which are often in rural areas, get paid more generously by Medicare and are exempt from some federal reporting standards. But those exemptions may be hiding quality issues at the facilities.
IOM Panel Raises Concerns About Lowering Medicare Pay For High Spending Areas
The report suggests that cutting payments in areas that pay more per beneficiary, such as Manhattan and Florida, could hit hospitals and doctors who are not providing expensive care.
This list includes various sources for hospital ratings.
