Joseph Rugg's Health Law Blog

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.

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.

Several New York-area hospitals will lose millions of dollars in federal Medicare payments, because too many of their patients keep coming back — and the government’s tired of paying for it.

The list of penalized hospitals includes some of the region’s biggest players: city hospitals, like Bellevue, Jacobi, Coney Island and Elmhurst; academic medical centers such as Beth Israel, St. Luke’s-Roosevelt and Mt. Sinai; and suburban ones like North Shore and Hackensack medical centers.

The federal government says if hospitals took better care of patients — especially ones with high needs — they wouldn’t be “frequent flyers,” constantly being readmitted and costing taxpayers billions of dollars.

Starting in October, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will start withholding up to 1 percent of Medicare payments from hospitals with too many “frequent flyer” patients. The maximum penalty will climb to 3 percent by October 2014.

Medicare came up with its list of “frequent flier” hospitals by looking at the 30-day readmission rate for patients with heart failure, heart attack and pneumonia.

See on www.wnyc.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.

An additional 100,000 Hampton Roads residents would qualify for Medicaid under the proposed expansion authorized by the Affordable Care Act to take effect in 2014, according to new figures released by the Urban Institute.  Those account for more than a quarter of the newly eligible in the whole state.

Speakers at a public meeting of the Hampton-Newport News Community Services Board at the Embassy Suites in Hampton on Thursday outlined the potential economic and health impacts of “Obamacare.” Despite the anticipated costs, all urged the state to adopt the Medicaid expansion for its potential benefits for the general health of the population, and in particular for those with behavioral health diagnoses as the ACA mandates parity for mental health treatment.

See on www.dailypress.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.

Conservatives have howled over the health-care reform law’s requirement that people buy insurance. But recent comments from the Romney campaign have some wondering if the presumptive GOP nominee is now embracing it.

See on www.csmonitor.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.