Latest KFF Health News Stories
Officials Warn Some Older Marketplace Customers To Switch To Medicare
The government is sending emails and letters to some seniors to warn them that if they are eligible for Medicare and stay on the health law’s exchange, they will have to repay any subsidies they receive and if they miss their Medicare enrollment opportunity, they will face a life-long penalty.
‘Simple Choice Plans’ To Debut In 2017 Marketplace Enrollment
The standardized policy options would provide a way for consumers to make apples-to-apples comparisons.
Doctors Raise Concerns For Small Practices In Medicare’s New Payment System
The government is laying out plans to use payment incentives to promote higher quality care, but physicians say the new system may be hard on solo practices and small groups.
As The For-Profit World Moves Into An Elder Care Program, Some Worry
PACE, a little-known Medicare program that helps keep older people in their own homes, is allowing for-profit companies in. Tech and venture capital have expressed interest.
CMS Identifies Hospitals Paid Nearly $1.5B In 2015 Medicare Billing Settlement
A year after settling billing disputes with 2,022 hospitals for 68 cents on the dollar, the government has revealed who got paid and how much.
Administration Paints Rosy Future For Obamacare Marketplaces
Report portrays Affordable Care Act’s individual market as improving with rising enrollments of healthier, lower-risk consumers, a performance that clashes with recent complaints from some large insurers.
Teaching In-Home Caregivers Seems To Pay Off
Intensive training for such aides helps reduce repeated ER visits and hospitalizations of elderly disabled people, a pilot project suggests.
Many Well-Known Hospitals Fail To Score 5 Stars In Medicare’s New Ratings
Of the 102 hospitals that received a five-star rating, few are among the elite generally praised for great care.
Kentucky And Feds Near Possible Collision On Altering Medicaid Expansion
By Aug. 1, Republican Gov. Matt Bevin is expected to ask the Obama administration to approve significant changes on many Medicaid enrollees, including monthly premiums and a work requirement.
Medicare Prepares To Go Forward With New Hospital Quality Ratings
The government will soon give hospitals one to five stars to sum up their quality. Some safety hospitals and teaching hospitals won’t fare as well as other facilities.
Doctors Wrestle With Mixed Messages When Deciding Whether To Prescribe Painkillers
Though the CDC’s new prescribing guidelines follow a theme of less is more, another federal agency’s patient satisfaction surveys include questions about pain management that some say encourage doctors to prescribe the highly addictive medicines.
Feds Urge State Medicaid Programs To Encourage Long-Acting Contraceptives
Medicaid spends billions on unintended pregnancies, and federal officials say better use of long-acting contraceptives, such as IUDs, offer advantages for women and are cost-effective.
Medicare’s Efforts To Curb Backlog Of Appeals Not Sufficient, GAO Reports
Investigators from the GAO call for HHS to improve oversight of the Medicare appeals process and streamline it to make sure repetitive claims are handled more efficiently.
Study Suggests Federal Standard May Be Thwarting Some Transplant Patients
Researchers report that performance standards set by federal health officials may have led to many patients being dropped from transplant lists without improving survival rates.
Medicare Pays Bonuses To 231 Hospitals With Lower Quality Because Of Cheaper Costs
New research highlights the paradox in the federal program to improve hospital quality.
FAQ: Medicare Lays Out Plans For Changing Doctors’ Pay
The effort, which will replace a controversial reimbursement schedule that began in 1997, is designed to move away from paying for quantity of services and focus instead on quality.
Medicare Delays Plans For New Star Ratings On Hospitals After Congressional Pressure
The “overall hospital quality” rating is designed to help consumers who are sometimes confused by the variety of quality measures that the government already provides. But members of Congress had asked for the delay because of concerns that the methodology for the stars was not accurate.
How Medicare Drug Plans Hope To Follow Private Sector Lead
The proposal that Medicare made this month to better control prescription drug costs involves testing strategies used with some success in the private sector.
Cigna Profits As Medicare Softens Penalty Policy
A new policy preserves Cigna’s access to bonuses while the insurer fixes “widespread” failures in its Medicare plans.
Medicare Plans Score Higher Ratings And Millions In Bonuses
The share of Medicare Advantage members enrolled in plans with high star ratings has almost doubled since 2013, earning bonuses for private insurers who offer them.
