Senate Chairman Opens Investigation into Not-for-Profit Hospitals Senate Finance Committee Chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), has re-opened an investigation into tax-exempt hospitals due to his concern that the hospitals aren't using billions of dollars in tax savings to prioritize community needs. Saying in a letter to the IRS...
Hospitals, Doctors, Insurers Mobilize To Kill Medicare for All Their message is simple: the Affordable Care Act is working reasonably well and should be improved, not repealed by Republicans or replaced by Democrats with a big new public program. More than 155 million Americans have employer-sponsored...
50 Best Hospitals Named by Healthgrades Healthgrades last week published their list of the 50 best hospitals in the country based solely on clinical quality outcomes for 32 conditions and procedures. Also released were the top 100 and 250 hospitals in America, eight states did not have...
Senators Tackle Surprise Medical Bills; Medical Groups Caution Against Capping Payments Led by Sens. Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA) and Michael Bennet (D-CO), a group of bipartisan Senators sent letters asking for detailed information from providers and insurers regarding surprise medical billing practices as they draft legislation to halt the...
Hospital-Acquired Conditions Down Significantly Good news for hospitals and their patients, according to the latest Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's National Scorecard on Hospital-Acquired Conditions, HACs have dropped by about 13-percent over a three-year period. HACs include infections, adverse drug reactions, and similar unintended side effects. Of particular...
Large Hospital DSH Cuts Scheduled for October 1; MACPAC Says Congress Should Slow Them Down The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission recommended that if Congress allows the disproportionate share hospital allotment cuts to move forward that they change the law to slow them down...
Partner Strategic Health Care - Ohio, North Carolina, Washington, D.C. Barbara Sears Roshon is a Partner in the national consultancy Strategic Health Care. Prior to joining the firm, she served as the Director of the Ohio Department of Medicaid, Ohio’s first cabinet-level state Medicaid agency. The department...
MedPAC Recommends Increases to Hospitals, LTCHs, No Increases for ASCs, SNFs, Reductions for IRFs, Home Health The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission last week recommended 2-percent payment increases to both short-term acute and long-term acute care hospitals in 2020. Additionally, the Commissioners voted to recommend to replace...
New Congress Tackling Drug Prices Two democrats and an independent introduced bills in the House and Senate to lower the high costs of drugs. Sen. Bernie Sander (I-VT), Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) introduced a three-part plan last week that included: The Prescription...
House Votes to Join Legal Defense of ACA; Committee Plans Hearing on Judge's Decision In one of the first votes after taking over the House, Democrat leaders pushed through a measure to allow the chamber to defend the Affordable Care Act in court by joining the...