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After a decade of short term fixes, the House passed legislation to replace Medicare’s troubled Sustainable Growth Rate, or SGR, and replace it with an alternative doctor payment formula. Kaiser Health News' Mary Agnes Carey and Politico Pro's Jennifer Haberkorn discuss what's next for the bill when the Senate returns from recess next month.
For more than a decade, doctors who treat Medicare patients have been threatened with pay cuts due to a faulty formula of how doctors are reimbursed. But in a rare bipartisan agreement, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a deal to permanently end the problem and reward quality of care, not quantity.
For people in Mount Vernon, Texas, the loss of their hospital means longer trips for treatment and uncertainty when a medical crisis hits.
Pleasing patients has become more important to hospitals as Medicare takes consumers views into account when setting payments. Most hospitals are getting better, but others have not improved since the government started publishing ratings six years ago.
New federal rules requiring current information apply to insurers selling plans on healthcare.gov and the private policies that are an alternative to Medicare.
For many physicians, normal pressure hydrocephalus, or NPH, doesn’t come to mind when they see people with cognitive and gait problems, although it is one of the few treatable causes of dementia.
KHN consumer columnist Michelle Andrews answers readers’ questions about enrolling at this point in marketplace plans, CHIP enrollment and Medicare disability.
A little known part of Obamacare pays primary care doctors to help overweight seniors drop pounds and improve their health. So why aren’t more seniors taking advantage of the free benefit?
The lethal infection is one of three that the CDC says urgently require close monitoring and prevention to halt their spread.
Some hospital revenue is now going to be tied to how happy you - the patient - are when you stay there. But not all hospitals are going to be capable of winning the Medicare sweepstakes.
Nursing homes now will be graded on their use of anti-psychotic drugs and will have to do more to get top ratings on the federal website Nursing Home Compare.
Medicaid managed care enrollees in Illinois are reporting difficulties seeing their doctors and getting prescriptions filled, which a state Medicaid official attributes to the speed and scope of the changes.
About 400,000 beneficiaries have until the end of this month to reconsider their Medicare Part D plan choices after Aetna incorrectly identified some pharmacies as being in-network, dropped others and removed some from "preferred" network status.
With the growth of the hospice industry, consumers have a number of choices for end-of-life care. Here’s a primer to help be prepared.
As part of their effort to improve quality while cutting costs, federal officials announced Monday that they want programs such as accountable care organizations and bundled care to account for 50 percent of traditional Medicare spending by the end of 2018.
Penalties for readmissions and patient injuries erase bonuses hospitals earn for meeting stiff quality criteria. Fewer than 800 will end up with higher payments.
The new Republican chairman of the Senate Finance Committee says the GOP will chip away at Obamacare “piece by piece.” Still, he says he will work with Democrats to continue funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program and overhauling Medicare pay for doctors.
The majority of people choosing the private plans for Medicare coverage were switching out of the traditional program, research in the journal Health Affairs finds.
In California, hundreds of thousands of low-income elderly and disabled people receive daily care in their homes from their children, spouses, relatives and others. And, through a program called In-Home Supportive Services, the state pays many of those caregivers about $10 an hour to do the job.
KHN’s consumer columnist answers a reader’s question about whether coverage from the health law’s online exchanges is compatible with Medicare and another question on Medicare drug coverage options when seniors move.
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