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Tax-exempt health insurance carrier planned for state
The Missouri Foundation for Health has donated $500,000 to help with the development of a new tax-exempt health insurance carrier for small employers and individuals in the state.St.
Louis-based not-for-profit consulting firm The Mission Center hopes to launch the Missouri Community Healthcare Co-Op by January 2014. The Mission Center also is submitting an application to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for low-interest loans for as much as $50 million to launch the co-op, according to a news release from The Mission Center.
Small businesses and individuals face the greatest hurdles in finding affordable coverage from for-profit companies. The co-op hopes to lower costs and improve coverage for entities that struggle to access coverage.
See on www.columbiatribune.com
For an aggregation of other articles on Hot Topics in Healthcare Law, go to my magazine on Scoop.it – Hot Topics in Healthcare Law and Regulation and my newspaper on Paper.li – Hot Topics in Healthcare Law.
For an aggregation of other articles on improving healthcare, go to my internet magazine Scoop.it! Changing Health for the Better.
Memorial Hermann Accountable Care organization to participate in Medicare Shared Savings program
Memorial Hermann Accountable Care Organization, an affiliate of Memorial Hermann Healthcare System and its physician network, MHMD, have been selected to participate in the Medicare Shared Savings Program as an Accountable Care Organization, a new program sponsored by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Through the Shared Savings Program, MHACO will work with CMS to provide Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries with high-quality care, while lowering the rate of growth in Medicare costs through preventative medicine and careful management of patients diagnosed with chronic diseases. CMS will use robust quality measures to reward ACOs that achieve these outcomes.
In addition to Memorial Hermann’s 12 hospitals, numerous specialty institutes and advanced outpatient facilities, MHACO is a 332-member provider network comprised of both independent physician practices and physicians employed by Memorial Hermann affiliates. These physicians are a part of the Advanced Primary Care Practices patient-centered medical home initiative developed by MHMD.
MHACO believes a key factor in CMS’ selection of MHACO to participate in the Shared Savings Program is use of the innovative Advanced PCPs, built on MHMD’s clinical integration program that unites independent physicians of every specialty throughout the Houston area in a common commitment to quality and accountability.
See on www.yourhoustonnews.com
For an aggregation of other articles on Hot Topics in Healthcare Law, go to my magazine on Scoop.it – Hot Topics in Healthcare Law and Regulation and my newspaper on Paper.li – Hot Topics in Healthcare Law.
For an aggregation of other articles on improving healthcare, go to my internet magazine Scoop.it! Changing Health for the Better.
Health Reform Could Improve AIDS Treatment in Kentucky, Advocate Says
At a two-day HIV/AIDS conference this week in Lexington, an AIDS advocate pushed for better communication about health care reform among health care providers, advocates and the state.
According to Amy Killelea, senior manager for health care access at the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors, now is the time for advocates to let state legislators and the Kentucky office of Health Care Reform know what they need as part of health care reform.
See on www.thebody.com
For an aggregation of other articles on Hot Topics in Healthcare Law, go to my magazine on Scoop.it – Hot Topics in Healthcare Law and Regulation and my newspaper on Paper.li – Hot Topics in Healthcare Law.
For an aggregation of other articles on improving healthcare, go to my internet magazine Scoop.it! Changing Health for the Better.
When Data Makes You Look Bad – HealthLeaders Media
With the launch of an updated Hospital Compare site, and growing interest among the media, healthcare leaders need to face the fact that sometimes the data makes them look bad.
CMS now publicly posts hospital-specific results for 84 measures, with more expected in the next two years. Along with each measure, the public can download spreadsheets showing data for each hospital all in one file; one can see who’s better or worse even within a region, state, county, or ZIP code.
These rating systems alert employers, community leaders, and health plans, for example, whether your patients got the right antibiotic at the right time, how long the hospital made patients wait in the ED, and the rate of central line bloodstream infections, or numbers of foreign objects left inside body cavities during surgery. Even the hospital’s cost for an episode of care is held up for public view.
See on www.healthleadersmedia.com
For an aggregation of other articles on Hot Topics in Healthcare Law, go to my magazine on Scoop.it – Hot Topics in Healthcare Law and Regulation and my newspaper on Paper.li – Hot Topics in Healthcare Law.
For an aggregation of other articles on improving healthcare, go to my internet magazine Scoop.it! Changing Health for the Better.
How Five Leading Safety-Net Hospitals Are Preparing For The Challenges and Opportunities of Health Care Reform – Kaiser Family Foundation
This study, published in the journal Health Affairs, examines how five leading safety-net hospitals are preparing for major changes expected to result from the Affordable Care Act (ACA), including less government support for uncompensated care and the need to compete for newly insured people. The hospitals studied are Bellevue Hospital Center in New York City; Denver Health Medical Center in Colorado; Parkland Health and Hospital System in Dallas; San Francisco General Hospital in California; and Virginia Commonwealth University Health System in Richmond, Va. Their preparations include improving the efficiency and quality of care delivery, investing in the physical and staffing infrastructure needed to retain patients and attract newly insured ones, and laying the groundwork for accountable care organizations and new payment systems. Authors include Jennifer Tolbert of the Kaiser Family Foundation, Terri Coughlin and Sharon Long of the Urban Institute, and Edward Sheen, a resident physician who was on research fellowship with the Foundation at the time of the study.
See on www.kff.org
For an aggregation of other articles on Hot Topics in Healthcare Law, go to my magazine on Scoop.it – Hot Topics in Healthcare Law and Regulation and my newspaper on Paper.li – Hot Topics in Healthcare Law.
For an aggregation of other articles on improving healthcare, go to my internet magazine Scoop.it! Changing Health for the Better.
In quality push, hospitals face Medicare penalty over readmissions – Tampa Bay Times
RAISING THE STAKES: Nearly 2 million Medicare beneficiaries are readmitted within 30 days of release each year. The cost to Medicare? $17.5 billion in additional hospital bills.
See on www.tampabay.com
For an aggregation of other articles on Hot Topics in Healthcare Law, go to my magazine on Scoop.it – Hot Topics in Healthcare Law and Regulation and my newspaper on Paper.li – Hot Topics in Healthcare Law.
For an aggregation of other articles on improving healthcare, go to my internet magazine Scoop.it! Changing Health for the Better.
CMS Launches Electronic Quality Reporting Pilot For Hospitals – InformationWeek
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has inaugurated an electronic quality reporting pilot for hospitals participating in its Medicare electronic health record (EHR) incentive program.
According to an announcement on CMS’s QualityNet site, hospitals and critical access hospitals registered for the Medicare incentive program can begin testing their ability to send quality data directly from their EHRs to CMS. From Oct. 1 to Nov. 30, the last two months in which hospitals can attest to Meaningful Use and receive 2012 payments under the Medicare program, they can transmit this data to CMS on a “production basis” to meet the quality reporting criteria.
See on www.informationweek.com
For an aggregation of other articles on Hot Topics in Healthcare Law, go to my magazine on Scoop.it – Hot Topics in Healthcare Law and Regulation and my newspaper on Paper.li – Hot Topics in Healthcare Law.
For an aggregation of other articles on improving healthcare, go to my internet magazine Scoop.it! Changing Health for the Better.
HEALTH AFFAIRS: In 2011 Nearly One-Third Of Physicians Said They Would Not Accept New Medicaid Patients, But Rising Fees May Help
HEALTH AFFAIRS: When fully implemented, the Affordable Care Act will expand the number of people with health insurance. This raises questions about the capacity of the health care workforce to meet increased demand. I used data on office-based physicians from the 2011 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey Electronic Medical Records Supplement to summarize the percentage of physicians currently accepting any new patients. Although 96 percent of physicians accepted new patients in 2011, rates varied by payment source: 31 percent of physicians were unwilling to accept any new Medicaid patients; 17 percent would not accept new Medicare patients; and 18 percent of physicians would not accept new privately insured patients. Physicians in smaller practices and those in metropolitan areas were less likely than others to accept new Medicaid patients. Higher state Medicaid-to-Medicare fee ratios were correlated with greater acceptance of new Medicaid patients. The findings serve as a useful baseline from which to measure the anticipated impact of Affordable Care Act provisions that could boost Medicaid payment rates to primary care physicians in some states while increasing the number of people with health care coverage.
See on content.healthaffairs.org
For an aggregation of other articles on Hot Topics in Healthcare Law, go to my magazine on Scoop.it – Hot Topics in Healthcare Law and Regulation and my newspaper on Paper.li – Hot Topics in Healthcare Law.
For an aggregation of other articles on improving healthcare, go to my internet magazine Scoop.it! Changing Health for the Better.
The Promise And Peril Of Accountable Care For Vulnerable Populations: A Framework For Overcoming Obstacles
Accountable care organizations (ACOs) are a promising payment model aimed at reducing costs while also improving the quality of care. However, there is a risk that vulnerable populations may not be fully incorporated into this new model. The authors define two distinct vulnerable populations, clinically at-risk and socially disadvantaged and discuss how ACOs may benefit each group. The authors provide a framework to use in considering challenges for both vulnerable patients and health systems on the path to accountable care. The authors identify policies that can help overcome these obstacles: strategies that support ACO formation in diverse settings and that monitor, measure, and reward the performance of providers that reach all patients, including vulnerable populations.
See on content.healthaffairs.org
For an aggregation of other articles on Hot Topics in Healthcare Law, go to my magazine on Scoop.it – Hot Topics in Healthcare Law and Regulation and my newspaper on Paper.li – Hot Topics in Healthcare Law.
For an aggregation of other articles on improving healthcare, go to my internet magazine Scoop.it! Changing Health for the Better.
New Yorker — Atul Gawande: Can Hospital Chains Improve the Medical Industry?
Restaurant chains have managed to combine quality control, cost control, and innovation. Can health care?
Big chains thrive because they provide goods and services of greater variety, better quality, and lower cost than would otherwise be available.
Medicine, though, had held out against the trend. Physicians were always predominantly self-employed, working alone or in small private-practice groups. American hospitals tended to be community-based. But that’s changing. Hospitals and clinics have been forming into large conglomerates. And physicians—facing escalating demands to lower costs, adopt expensive information technology, and account for performance—have been flocking to join them. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only a quarter of doctors are self-employed—an extraordinary turnabout from a decade ago, when a majority were independent. They’ve decided to become employees, and health systems have become chains.
See on www.newyorker.com
For an aggregation of other articles on Hot Topics in Healthcare Law, go to my magazine on Scoop.it – Hot Topics in Healthcare Law and Regulation and my newspaper on Paper.li – Hot Topics in Healthcare Law.
For an aggregation of other articles on improving healthcare, go to my internet magazine Scoop.it! Changing Health for the Better.
Joseph Rugg's Health Law Blog 