Hospitals’ Readmissions Rates Not Budging
Medicare data show little improvement in curbing the number of beneficiaries who are readmitted despite threats of financial penalties to hospitals.
Once Focus of Health Law, Some In Poverty May Be Left Out
Mississippi family’s insurance problems could remain if state decides to follow Supreme Court’s option to decline Medicaid expansion.
Report: Higher Payments Are No Cure For Doctor Shortage
Medicare should not try to address the shortages of doctors and health care providers in some areas of the country by raising reimbursements to lure practitioners there, the Institute of Medicine recommended Tuesday. The committee concluded that while “there are wide discrepancies in access to and quality of care across geographic areas, particularly for racial […]
Safety Net Hospitals Could Lose Money In Medicare Changes, Study Warns
When Medicare begins adjusting hospital payments in October based on quality, one of the primary metrics will be patient experience ratings that cover everything from the communication skills of doctors and nurses to their promptness in responding to complaints about pain. A new study finds that this change may add to the financial troubles of […]
Court Ruling Doesn’t Quell Partisan Feelings On Health Law
A new Kaiser Family Foundation poll done immediately after Thursday’s ruling shows the public remains split on the law along party lines.
Justices Uphold Individual Mandate, Set Limits On Medicaid Expansion
The ruling on Medicaid creates a new arena for political battles in the 26 states that sued to overturn the law. Within hours of the decision, Republican officials in several states said they were likely to oppose expanding the program.
Uncertainty Over Law Casts Shadow Over Health Care Innovations
Under the 2010 health law, the government has invested in a decade’s worth of ideas on how to improve patient care and change the ways doctors and hospitals function — changes could be halted if the Supreme Court throws out all or part of the law.
Doctors Admit To Unprofessional Behavior In Study At 3 Chicago Hospitals
Working in a real hospital isn’t usually as dramatic as is portrayed in TV shows like Grey’s Anatomy or House, MD, but a new study has identified unprofessional behaviors to which hospital-based doctors most frequently admit, including badmouthing fellow doctors and finding medical excuses to get out of having to care for patients. Two-thirds of […]
Stakes High For Consumers And Industry As Court Weighs Health Law
If the Supreme Court strikes down part or all of the 2010 federal health law, millions of Americans – including the uninsured, young adults and the chronically ill – could be affected.
Lots of ‘C’s As Hospitals Get Graded For Patient Safety
The cities of New York and Los Angeles grade their restaurants on cleanliness and the precautions they take to avoid making customers sick. Now hospitals are getting similar assessments for their patient safety records from the Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit devoted to patient safety. For 2,651 hospitals, Leapfrog created a single letter grade out of […]
How Much Do The Nation’s Pre-Eminent Hospitals Cost Medicare?
Can you cut health care spending without undermining the quality of care? It’s a major concern as Medicare prepares to prod hospitals to provide medical care more efficiently by giving bonuses to those whose patients cost less and taking money away from places that send the government higher bills. Last week, Capsules culled through the […]
Which Hospitals’ Patients Cost Medicare The Most? A Top 10 List
New government data identify which hospitals’ patients cost Medicare the most. Below are the 10 hospitals whose patients cost Medicare the most–both during their stays and for all services in the month afterward. All hospitals are general medical and surgical hospitals unless noted otherwise. Medicare calculates a hospital rate as a ratio to the national […]
Reassessing McAllen’s Health Bill
Remember McAllen? It’s the Texas border town that during the health care debate became synonymous with wasteful medical spending. Even Barack Obama was talking about it. In part because of McAllen’s bad reputation, based on studies by the Dartmouth Atlas, Congress ended up instructing Medicare to start rewarding hospitals that provide care efficiently — and taking […]
Medicare Spotlights Hospitals With Especially Costly Patients
The new data, which include beneficiaries’ bills in the hospital and for 30 days afterward, are a first step toward using bonuses and penalties to encourage more efficient care.
200 Years Of Surgery In Eight Pages (With Drawings!)
For the 200th anniversary of the New England Journal of Medicine, Atul Gawande — surgeon, journalist, author, researcher, public speaker, father of three — takes a fun spin through two centuries of surgery by going back to the first volume of the publication, then known by the slightly less succinct name of the New England […]
Costly Heart Procedures Thrive In Some Places, Michigan Study Finds
Why do some doctors keep doing expensive medical procedures after it becomes apparent there are cheaper and equally safe ways to treat patients? A new study of cardiac procedures in Michigan takes a crack at this question, and while it comes up short on definitive answers, it has some interesting findings. The Center for Healthcare […]
Medicare To Add Hospital Efficiency, Patient Safety To Payment Formula
Medicare is proposing a significant change in how it decides on hospital reimbursements, adding two measures of patient safety and a financial assessment of whether hospitals are careful stewards of Medicare’s money. The changes represent a broadening of the way Medicare plans to pay hospitals through its value-based purchasing program, which is set to begin in October. Medicare […]
Survey: Court Hearings Don’t Move Public Opinion On Health Law
The three days in March that the Supreme Court devoted to debating the health law didn’t change many minds among the public. But the debate, and related media coverage, appear to have increased awareness about the law and made Republicans more supportive of the justices, according to a new survey. As it has for two years, […]
Medicare To Tie Doctors’ Pay To Quality, Cost Of Care
A little-noticed provision of the health law calls for increasing reimbursements to doctors who provide quality care at lower cost and reducing payments to physicians who run up costs without better results.
Recession Boosted Hospital Expansions Into Affluent Areas, Study Finds
Amid the recession, hospitals have been aggressively establishing footholds in affluent areas outside their traditional market boundaries as they fight for the patients with the best insurance, according to a new study. The paper, published in Health Affairs, found hospitals “wooing” EMS workers that service well-off neighborhoods, even sprucing up the rooms where the workers […]
