Medicare To Begin Basing Hospital Payments On Patient-Satisfaction Scores
Beginning in 2012, bad grades from unhappy patients could cause hospitals to lose out on bonuses.
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Beginning in 2012, bad grades from unhappy patients could cause hospitals to lose out on bonuses.
Many states are trying to restrain Medicaid spending by putting more people into managed care plans, but with billions of dollars at stake, insurers and health providers are lobbying hard for their interests.
This year, seniors enrolled in Medicare no longer have to pay for more than a dozen tests and services to prevent disease thanks to the health law. Many, however, aren't lining up for mammograms or colonoscopies though free wellness checks are luring many.
Michelle Andrews, author of KHN's "Insuring Your Health" weekly feature, talks with Jackie Judd about clinics that charge a patient a monthly fee
When writing the final ACO rules, CMS has the chance to spin the dross of the current regulations into something of genuine value to providers, even if it's not quite Rumpelstiltskin-quality gold. If the feds fail, it is all of us, not just those on Medicare program, who could live unhappily ever after.
With states reducing the number of psychiatric beds, mentally ill patients often languish in hospital emergency rooms for several days, sometimes longer. At most, they get drugs but little counseling, and the environment is often harsh.
RAND Health Vice President and Director Arthur Kellermann, M.D., disputes the way his organization's research was depicted in a recent column by John Goodman about Medicaid. Kellerman notes the study in question was designed to examine health care quality, not to determine the value of different types of insurance.
A majority of Americans give the country's health system barely passing grades. Most people choose a hospital based on someone's personal experience than looking at quality ratings. Yet when it comes to surgeons, people are evenly split on whether experience or data is the best guide.
The centers, designed to help low-income and uninsured people, offer an affordable option for care, but it can also be tough to get an appointment.
Rosemary Gibson, who has led national efforts to improve health care quality and safety, is concerned about 32 million newly insured Americans being exposed to too much treatment.
Recent lawsuits show the government is cracking down on suspected anti-competitive actions in the health care and insurance industries.
Critics say the agreements, designed to help educate consumers about the dangers of opiods, invade patient privacy and damage trust.
As many as 4 million Medicare beneficiaries could end up in new model of health care, but initial savings for government are small.
KHN's Jordan Rau explains how the Obama administration envisions accountable care organizations, which are designed to help hospitals and doctors form new networks to coordinate patients' care.
KHN's Jordan Rau explains how the Obama administration envisions accountable care organizations, which are designed to help hospitals and doctors form new networks to coordinate patients' care. Officials estimate that the ACOs could save Medicare up to $960 million over three years. ACOs are a feature of the new health law.
Seriously ill patients, even when not facing death, can benefit from better pain and symptom management, care coordination and help setting goals from specially trained teams, which typically include a doctor, a nurse, a social worker and a spiritual counselor.
Palliative care takes an interdisciplinary approach similar to hospice
Pediatric palliative care is for children who are living with very serious and complex illness. They do not have to have a life expectancy of only a few months.
The health overhaul law is spurring a major expansion of programs that will benefit ex-offenders and other indigent people in California beginning this summer.
Dr. Joanne Wolfe, of Children's Hospital Boston, talks about her approach to helping children live with serious or life-limiting illness and how many need an interdisciplinary approach to care to make sense of the maze of medical treatment.
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