115 Hospitals Named to Leapfrog’s Best in 2016 The Leapfrog Group named its Top Hospitals of the year last week, and 115 hospitals made the list in four categories: children’s hospitals, general hospitals, teaching hospitals and rural hospitals. The Leapfrog Group considers several quality metrics when...

Weekly E-bulletin 12/5/16 Consumer Reports Ranks Hospitals on Acquired Infections Consumer Reports states in a new analysis that several high-profile teaching hospitals are not doing enough to shield patients from certain bacterial infections. The organization investigated nearly 2,000 hospitals and ranked 31 hospitals as low performers...

What Will Donald Trump’s Election Mean to Healthcare? With Donald Trump’s upset victory, the Washington establishment is stunned. There are few places in federal policy that will be impacted as much, potentially, as health care. President-elect Trump said last week his top 3 priorities are immigration,...

Freestanding Emergency Department Growth Skyrockets: MedPAC There has been a rapid growth of freestanding emergency departments across the United States in the past eight years, according to a report last week from the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC).  From 2008 to 2016, there was a 97...

CMS Will Re-Open 2 Advanced APMs CMS announced last week that it will reopen applications for two of the advanced alternative payment models (APMs) for clinicians to enroll for the 2018 performance year – the Comprehensive Primary Care Plus (CPC+) Model and the Next Generation Accountable...

Healthgrades Releases Top Hospital List Based on Clinical Outcomes Healthgrades last week released its ratings report of top U.S. hospitals based on clinical outcomes. From 2013 through 2015, clinical and quality outcomes varied widely and if all hospitals had performed like those that rated 5 stars,...

CMS Releases Final Physician Payment System Rule; Agency Makes Major Changes CMS released its final physician payment system rule on Friday.  It is the most comprehensive reform of Medicare since the creation of the Affordable Care Act in 2010 and takes effect January 1, 2017.  The...

261 House Members Urge CMS to Change HOPD Rule 261 House members signed onto a letter last week urging CMS to make changes to the proposed rule dealing with hospital outpatient departments (HOPDs) to allow for more flexibility. The letter voices concerns over the strict regulations...

Medicare’s Mandatory “Demo” Bundles Are Illegal, Says 179 GOP House Members Calling out CMS on its CJR, Part B demo and proposed cardiac bundles, a majority of House Republicans sent a letter to CMS urging the agency to cease all current and future planned mandatory demos....

CMS Wants Home Health Agencies to Report Major Falls To satisfy another requirement of the IMPACT Act, CMS announced last week a new measure for Home Health Agencies to determine the percentage of patients who experience a fall with major injury. CMS justifies this measure as...