Articles Tagged With: Medicare
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HHS Distributing $175 Billion in CARES Act Provider Relief Fund
The Department of Health and Human Services is distributing $175 billion to hospitals and healthcare providers to compensate for their coronavirus response. Through the Provider Relief Funds, $50 billion is allocated proportional to providers’ share of 2018 net patient revenue.
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Study Revealed Large Increase in Care Management Utilization
In a study of Medicare data, researchers found that transitional care management utilization increased fourfold from 2013-2018, from 298,000 in 2013 to 1.3 million in 2018.
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Think About Record Retention Now, Not at End
Physician practices and even hospitals sometimes make the mistake of putting off decisions on record retention until they think it is time to clear out a storage facility or reduce their data storage expenses. A better approach is to determine how long certain records should be kept and then establish a destruction date.
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CMS Issues Stark Waivers, Makes Other Allowances for Pandemic
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued waivers and allowances that will affect risk management programs, including 18 blanket waivers of sanctions under the Stark Law.
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HHS Begins Allocating CARES Act Relief Dollars
Agency sending $30 billion to frontline providers battling COVID-19.
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Feds Ease Off on Specific Health-Related Regulations to Handle COVID-19 Crisis
Trump administration temporarily waives certain penalties and restrictions regarding HIPAA, telemedicine services.
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The Pushback to Burdensome Authorization Requirements Has Begun
It is hard to dispute the fact that prior authorization requirements place a heavy burden on both patients and providers. Yet the number of services and medications requiring auths continues to increase. Read on to learn about several trends.
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Study Results Suggest ASCs May Not Be Lowest-Cost Option for All Procedures
Generally, ASCs are perceived as safe, high-quality, low-cost settings for many surgical procedures. Typically, ASC costs are lower than those in the similarly safe and high-quality settings of hospital outpatient departments, which also handle same-day surgeries. However, the authors of a recent study found there is one striking exception: outpatient joint replacement surgery.
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Rate of Medicare Beneficiaries Hospitalized for Sepsis Jumps
Investigators observed a 40% increase between 2012 and 2018.
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Program Tailored to Reducing Senior Patient Readmissions
A program in the Chicago area is demonstrating the value of tailoring discharge plans to the particular needs of elderly patients with little support outside the hospital. These “solo seniors” often face complex medical challenges after discharge and can experience high rates of readmission without help from family and friends. With hospitals facing significant penalties from 30-day readmissions, the program could be a model for hospitals to emulate.