Research in Health Affairs finds that ambulatory surgery centers take significantly less time per procedure than do hospital outpatient surgery centers, with lower costs and equal or better outcomes, suggesting that their use should be encouraged.
A study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine finds that medical home-qualified physician groups produced improvement on only four of ten quality improvement measures, compared to non-medical home practices using EHRs or practices using paper records, and the improvements were quite modest.
http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1877017
Jun062014
The Congressional Budget Office has updated its estimates of how many people will pay the penalty for failing to have health insurance, finding that of the 30 million uninsured in 2016 only about 7 million will have to pay a penalty and two-thirds of those are lower income individuals. The amounts collected are also projected to be lower than previously estimated.
The Office of Inspector General of HHS has issued a report saying that CMS likely overpaid for office visits in Medicare by $6.7 billion and recommended that CMS take efforts to recover this money and to track abusive physicians better. CMS basically blew OIG off, I mean after all, what's a few billion more of wasted taxpayer funds.
The Center for Public Integrity has launched a series of articles on how Medicare Advantage plans use diagnostic coding to secure higher reimbursements, like adding to pressure to reform payments and the practice of home visits to secure diagnostic codes.
Premier, the large hospital group purchasing company, issued results from a survey of hospital leaders, showing the 40% are dissatisfied with their EHR, but they expect HIT to be the area with their largest capital expenditures. These leaders said the biggest drivers of health care costs are labor costs and legislative and regulatory requirements.
SmartPay Solutions received $1.4 million in new financing to assist in development and growth of its new approach to workers' compensation payments.
http://www.ctinnovations.com/story/57
Jun052014
Not that we really need any more evidence, but a Government Accounting Office report finds that physicians who own a physical therapy practice refer more Medicare beneficiaries to physical therapy than do doctors with no ownership interest, although less services per beneficiary are received. This suggests that those with an ownership interest are referring patients with less of a need.
http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/662860.pdf
Jun042014
Availity, a provider of health information exchange services, has acquired RevPoint Healthcare Technologies to bolster its capabilities to help providers with revenue collection from patients.
According to a survey, one third of Americans say that the health reform law implementation will cause them to delay retirement because of higher health care costs.
NetHealth, which provides EMR and office management software to outpatient specialty departments, has acquired ReDoc, which helps therapists with documentation and billing.
Decision Resources Manhattan Research Taking the Pulse 2014 report suggests that mobile communications usage continues to gain in popularity with physicians, who often engage with patients in this manner and that telemedicine is making slow but steady gains.
The Healthy Skeptic is a website about the health care system, and is written by Kevin Roche, who has many years of experience working in the health industry. Mr. Roche is available to assist health care companies through consulting arrangements through Roche Consulting, LLC and may be reached at khroche@healthy-skeptic.com.
The Healthy Skeptic is a website about the health care system, and is written by Kevin Roche, who has many years of experience working in the health industry. Mr. Roche is available to assist health care companies through consulting arrangements through Roche Consulting, LLC and may be reached at khroche@healthy-skeptic.com.