If Mandate Is Overturned, Obama Could Need Help To Salvage The Health Law
Should the Supreme Court throw out the requirement to carry insurance, the administration might need assistance from Congress or the insurance industry to complete the overhaul.
Best Hospitals In New Analysis Are Not The Most Renowned
HealthGrades is out with its latest list of America’s best hospitals, and the collection is notable for the heavy presence of community hospitals and the omission of many of the medical centers with national reputation. The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., the Cleveland Clinic and Stanford Hospital in Palo […]
HHS Floats New Ideas For Contraception Coverage Compromise
Again wading into the conflict between religious liberty and reproductive rights, the Obama administration on Friday suggested a number of ways it might arrange for insurers to pay for the contraception of employees of religious organizations without using any premium money from those groups. The ideas are intended to deal with a knotty problem created […]
Personal Views Color Public Opinion Of Health Law Court Case
Half the country hopes the Supreme Court will throw out the health law’s mandate that Americans carry health insurance, according to a new poll released Wednesday. In what may be a sign of political wish fulfillment, half of Americans expect that the court will take that course when it takes up the case later this […]
Study Finds High-Spending Canadian Hospitals Do Better
Canada has long been a favored talking point for debates over the quality of America’s health system, alternatively cast as either Eden or Gomorrah. A new paper adds a shade of gray into the understanding of Canadian hospitals — and the ongoing debate here about whether when it comes to medical spending, less is more. […]
Study: Medicare Quality Ratings Didn’t Reduce Patient Deaths
Medicare’s seven-year effort to spur quality improvements in hospital care by publishing key performance metrics on its Hospital Compare website has not resulted in fewer patient deaths, according to a new Health Affairs study. In 2005, Hospital Compare started rating more than 3,000 hospitals on how well they adhere to basic guidelines for clinical care, […]
Autoworkers’ Health Claims Offer Clues To Regional Spending Variations
Why does health care cost more in some areas of the country than others? It’s a question researchers have struggled with for decades, because the potential answers — unnecessary surgeries, generally bad health of patients or high prices charged by providers — each carry different prescriptions for how to hold down medical costs. Now a […]
Experts Question Medicare’s Effort To Rate Hospitals’ Patient Safety Records
The new data identify many major teaching institutions as having high rates of serious complications. But officials say the measures are faulty.
Medicare Data Show Variation In ‘Central Line’ Infection Rates Across States
Across the country, one in six hospitals has high rates of one of the most serious kinds of preventable infections — those caused by catheters inserted into large veins, according to new data published by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Patients at hospitals in Maryland, Mississippi, Louisiana, Maine and New Hampshire were most […]
Nowhere To Go But Up For The Poor Lacking Insurance, Says Study
In anticipation of the expansion of health insurance that will start in 2014 under the federal health care law, the Commonwealth Fund has begun tracking coverage of low-income Americans. The first of the surveys reconfirms what’s already well-known: the poor are starting from a pretty bad place in terms of coverage. A few examples: A […]
In Quest to Grow, Catholic Hospital System Pares Religious Ties
Catholic Healthcare West today ends its governing board’s religious affiliation to ease concerns from possible new partners. Some of its hospitals will remain Catholic.
CBO Report Card: Poor Grades For Some Medicare Cost Cutting Efforts
The underlying premise of some of the 2010 health law’s most ambitious changes to Medicare is using financial incentives to get doctors and hospitals to improve the quality of care and lower costs. Both accountable care organizations and the Value-Based Purchasing Program aim to give bonuses to hospitals that achieve such goals. But a new […]
Panel Winnows Proposed Quality Measures For Medicare And Medicaid
Updated 12:25 p.m. A panel of health care experts and industry officials has winnowed down 368 quality measures the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is considering to use in evaluating nursing homes, hospitals, diabetes facilities and other providers. The panel said 45 percent of the potential measures it reviewed shouldn’t be used by the […]
Measuring Quality: 368 New Ideas For 2012
How should Medicare and Medicaid measure doctors, hospitals, dialysis centers and other health care providers the government pays? There are 368 new ideas on the table this year, according to a list compiled by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. CMS estimates 60 will be adopted in 2012. Figuring out how to fairly and […]
Lawsuit Accuses Company Of Fraudulently Cycling Patients Through Nursing Homes, Hospice Care
Whistleblowers allege that AseraCare improperly channeled people to gain maximum Medicare reimbursements. In a separate suit, federal attorneys say the company pressured employees to enroll patients in hospice who weren’t dying.
Public Can Be Swayed On Health Law’s Mandate, Survey Finds
The individual mandate is the Affordable Care Act’s least popular provision and lies at the heart of the legal challenge to the law before the U.S. Supreme Court. But a new poll finds that public opinion can be swayed by how the mandate’s implications are described. In general, only 33 percent of Americans support the individual mandate, […]
Medicare Penalties For Readmissions Could Be A Tough Hit On Hospitals Serving The Poor
Federal officials are seeking to make sure patients get the care they need after discharge. But the new policy is likely to disproportionately affect hospitals that treat the most low-income patients, according to a Kaiser Health News analysis.
Study Suggests Readmission Rates May Reflect Broader Hospital Use
The high rate of hospital readmissions has produced a flurry of policy solutions to improve care for patients as they’re being discharged and afterward. But new research suggests more concern might be directed elsewhere: at the doctors who decide not just to send patients back to the hospital, but to admit them in the first […]
Readmissions Not Just A Medicare Problem, Study Finds
Medicare has identified preventable hospital readmissions as a measure of the fragmentation of health care for the elderly, driving up health care costs. A new paper finds younger patients also fail to get needed follow-up care after a hospital stay. About one in 12 adults ages 21 and older were readmitted to hospitals within 30 days of discharge, […]
Iowa Hospitals to NYC: Stop Blaming Your Patients
As Medicare moves with plans to pay hospitals in part by how well they score on reviews by patients, hospitals in low satisfaction regions such as New York have been complaining that their patients are harder to please. Those arguments, however, aren’t going over well in places like Iowa where patients tend to be more positive […]
