The Journal of the American Medical Association published an issue largely devoted to studies of hospital readmissions, looking both at patterns and potential causes and programs that might help reduce preventable readmissions.
Read More
One of the biggest problems with the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ hospital readmissions program is that it likely unfairly and disproportionately hurts hospitals which treat larger numbers of poor patients. A brief from the Commonwealth Fund explores this issue and potential solutions.
Our last Potpourri for 2012 is the ultimate in health information, containing not lumps of coal but tasty nuggets of holiday goodies, including transition care from hospital to primary care, how to control health spending growth, use of market incentives to improve the health system, building a good health insurance exchange and Massachusetts’ experience with the uninsured after reform.
Thanks be given for our last Potpourri before Thanksgiving, a table spread with delectable bites of information on hospital readmissions and quality measure performance, health plan enrollment growth, health price rises, use of deductibles in employer-based health insurance and trends in employment of physicians.
Another installment of our non-award winning (are there any potential awards?) Potpourri, this one examining drug costs for conditions of aging, self-referral in imaging, in home palliative care at the end-of-life, more on hospital readmissions and retail clinic utilization.
The light fades but not our evanescent Potpourri, this week featuring stories on computerized point of entry ordering, the presence of large treatment effects in research, characteristics of patients with readmissions, a survey on Medicare physician reimbursement and a study on family caregivers.
We, among many others, have been harsh critics of Medicare’s misguided hospital readmissions penalty program, which begins this year. MedPAC has weighed in with its views on how to “refine” the program, but its recommendations will only exacerbate the flaws in the current regulations.
The Alliance for Home Health Quality and Innovation sponsored a useful report on characteristics of home health care and other post-acute care services by Medicare beneficiaries, with a focus on those surrounding hospital readmissions, a significant current issue for hospitals.
At the height of the summer, with dryness across the land, there is no drought of information in our Potpourri, this week including use of an interactive health record to increase preventive care, Medicare and Medicaid geographical variation, shared decision-making, readmissions for heart attacks and Japan’s all-payer rate setting system.
This edition of our data-packed Potpourri focuses on hospital readmissions, use of computer physician order entry systems, what employers will do after 2014 when all of the health law kicks in, and hospital pay-for-performance programs.
Another tremendous edition of our Potpourri, featuring accountable care organization results, waste in our health system, self-referral costs, calculating hospital readmission rates and the benefits, if any, of telemonitoring frail seniors.
The CMS program to reduce, or at least penalize hospitals for, unnecessary readmissions is in full swing this year. A new study looks at how Medicare Advantage plans do in regard to readmissions for their beneficiaries and compares this performance to that for fee-for-service beneficiaries.
About this Blog
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 [email protected].
Apple Podcasts
Google Podcasts
Spotify
Overcast
PocketCasts
Radio Public
Stitcher
Anchor
RSS - Posts