The hospital price transparency rule, which was issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and went into effect on January 1, 2021, is largely being ignored by hospitals who would prefer to absorb any financial penalty than comply. CMS has only started to impose fines as of last Wednesday, according to an agency email, but...
The seven-day rolling average for COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. has been trending upward since late fall and experts warn that the unprecedented level of daily COVID-19 infections due to the Omicron variant will bring a sharp increase in deaths soon.
Despite the lower chance of becoming sick due to the "mild" symptoms associated with...
COVID-19 is on the upswing again due to the Delta variant's dominance nationwide. But skilled nursing facilities' vaccination rates among staff and healthcare professionals has plateaued. Organizations are taking action to encourage stronger vaccination policies. Additionally, insurance companies are now calling foul on CARES Act...News
A new KFF analysis found that Black Medicare beneficiaries are more likely to have cost-related problems with their healthcare than White beneficiaries; the racial disparity persisted among beneficiaries in both traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage plans.
About 28% of Black beneficiaries reported healthcare cost-related...Arizona News
In a news release Monday, Banner Health said Arizona is seeing an increase in the number of pediatric patients hospitalized with COVID-19. On January 11, the JAMA Network published a study examining pediatric COVID-19 hospitalization trends for 22 states; compared to other states, Arizona had the second highest rate of pediatric...National News
A study released this week found the rate of recovery and the length of a patient’s stay at a nursing facility are correlated with a patient’s mobility and their ability to care for themselves. This contributes evidence that Medicare’s bundled-payment program could negatively affect nursing homes and rehabilitation...White Papers, E books, Reports and more
A cross-sectional study of 620 ACOs which had 40-45 percent of patient visits provided by specialists had statistically significantly lower per-beneficiary person-year spending compared with ACOs with fewer visits done by specialists.
The authors concluded that ACOs providing 40 percent to less than 45 percent of office visits through...Arizona News
Safety net hospitals are set to be the winners from the new Medicaid reimbursement rules under the Hospitals Readmissions Reduction Program that categorizes hospitals into five groups based on the percentage of a hospital’s patient population participating in dual enrollment of Medicare and Medicaid.
A new study, published in...Arizona News
As an alternative Medicare payment model, bundled payment for care improvement (BPCI) programs aim to reduce spending by creating incentives for providers to remove expendable costs.
Bundled payments are “episode-based,” relevant to specific conditions or treatments in which providers are expected to absorb service costs and...
