Archive
Mostashari says EHR incentives estimated to reach $20 billion by 2015 | Legal Transcription
There are no set appropriations for how much the federal government can spend on rewarding providers who adopt and use electronic health records under the Medicare and Medicaid meaningful use EHR incentive program, according to National Coordinator for Health IT Farzad Mostashari, M.D.
“Whoever qualifies, gets paid; there’s no hard cap,” said Mostashari, who gave a keynote at the Annual Policy Summit for the Health Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS) on Wednesday.
Mostashari said the federal government estimates it will pay out around $20 billion in incentives before the program shifts to a penalty in 2015, but there is no fixed budget set in the HITECH Act that mandated the program. The government recently announced it has paid out nearly $7 billion since the program began in 2011.
See on www.lawscribes.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.
AAFP recommends greater role for primary care docs in Medicare | Healthcare Finance News
Congress must repeal the sustainable growth rate formula to stabilize Medicare physician payments, and CMS needs to adopt a series of strategies that would strengthen the Medicare program by enhancing the role of primary care physicians, said the American Academy of Family Physicians in a recent letter to CMS.
See on www.healthcarefinancenews.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.
Healthcare Business Models Clash with Reforms – HealthLeaders Media
Healthcare executives responding to a survey say the nation will see major changes in the way healthcare is delivered and paid for in the next five years as providers and payers struggle to do more with less.
Most of those executives, however, also believe that the fee-for-service-based business models they’re using now will be at least “somewhat sustainable” or fare even better in the face of new challenges brought on by healthcare reform.
KPMG LLP consultants surveyed more than 200 senior leaders in healthcare and found that 73% of health systems executives, 81% of health plan executives, and 79% of drug makers said their business models were somewhat sustainable or better over the next five years.
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.
Forbes Insights: Getting From Volume to Value in Health Care
Download this Forbes Insight Report. This is the challenge of healthcare reform in this country.
************************************
Value-based purchasing, where cost and quality are each integral parts of the equation, is now widely seen as a replacement for traditional fee-for-service reimbursement. For senior hospital and health system executives, the challenge is getting from the-way-things-have-always-been to the-way-things-will-be without tumbling into a fiscal chasm because of the-way-things-are-now.
Getting From Volume to Value in Health Care: Balancing Challenges & Opportunities examines the issues and concerns vital to chief executive officers, chief financial officers and chief medical officers who are charged with leading their institutions on that quest. While as a group they are cautiously optimistic and endorse the goals that value-based purchasing seeks to achieve, they know that the path is neither straightforward nor obstacle free.
See on www.forbes.com
Are meaningful use incentives worth the hassle?
It’s no secret that hospitals are unlikely to recover much of the money they spend on electronic health record (EHR) implementation through the meaningful use incentive program. But experts say hospitals need to watch out for the long-term costs associated with using EHRs. If technology initiatives are not planned effectively, these expenses may quickly swamp a hospital’s finances and have a much more lasting impact than the up-front money hospitals have to pay to get systems up and running.
Methodist Health System, a Texas group comprised of six hospitals and a network of ambulatory medical offices, has implemented EHRs throughout its system and is currently receiving incentive payments. But Pamela McNutt, the system’s senior vice president and CIO, said these payments only covered a fraction of the up-front implementation costs. When the total cost of ownership of the EHR system is added up, the meaningful use incentives may not actually be all that meaningful for the system’s bottom line.
See on searchhealthit.techtarget.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.
JAMA Forum: A Tale of 2 Health Plans
Consider 2 plans for health coverage.
In plan No. 1 (the ACA), the approach is to help everyone under the age of 65 years who doesn’t have insurance coverage. Everyone who is really poor is offered Medicaid. Everyone else will be put into a regulated market.
In plan No. 2 (the Romney plan for Medicare), the approach is to change the way everyone over the age of 65 years gets health insurance. Everyone who is really poor is offered Medicaid. They—along with everyone else—will also be put into a regulated market.
The differences between the end points of the ACA and the Romney plan for Medicare are shockingly similar. With enough tweaks and some serious efforts at compromise, one could be accepted in exchange for the other. The powers of both competitive bidding and regulatory reform could be used.
We could stop demonizing the other side for trying to “end America” by seeking results that aren’t much different from our own.
I’m not optimistic. It’s an election year. And despite protestations that good policy is the goal, it seems far too often that politicians care more about winning elections than about Americans winning a better health care system.
See on newsatjama.jama.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.
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.
Joseph Rugg's Health Law Blog 