According to an August 3, 2017 CNN report by Caitlin Ostroff and Ciara Bri’d Frisbie, Sixteen percent of mainland America is 30 miles or more from a hospital. The lack of adequate financing of rural hospitals may make this worse. Medicaid cuts could close even more rural hospitals This can especially effect trauma, cardiac neurological… Read More
According to an article in Modern Healthcare, CMS announced in August 2017 that they will give inpatient psychiatric facilities a modest 1% Medicaid reimbursement increase in 2018 of $45 million. Medicare previously announced they would receive a $100 million increase in Medicare reimbursement in 2018 Excerpts include: The agency made the change via a notice… Read More
Information in this blog came from a story which was published on California Healthline by Kellen Browning on June 12, 2017. This article looks at the effects of Obamacare, ACA, and Medicaid expansion on ER visits. It was produced by Kaiser Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health… Read More
Medical coverage is one thing but physicians and patients alike will tell you coverage does not mean that they will have access to timely medical care. The issue that California is facing is that the Accountable Care Act (ACA) has covered a tremendous number of patients with Medi-Cal leading many to believe they will have… Read More
This article in The August 8, 2016 issue of JAMA looks at the effects of the ACA and Medicaid expansion on several factors relating access of care and health improvement. Interestingly this article compares two different Medicaid expansion programs and a state where there were no expansions undertaken. Specifically, the study looked at Kentucky, Arkansas,… Read More
The results are out: 3% winners and 97% losers in the first go around on Medicare bonuses for the Value-Based Payment Modifier (VBM) program in 2014. No one knew what exactly to expect when the instituted the VBM program but no one expected these lopsided results and clearly now it appears these results are like a… Read More
Because of the failure of Medicare and Medicaid to pay fairly, only about 69% of Hawaii physicians accept Medicare patients. A proposed law introduced Jan 22, 2016 by the speaker of the Hawaiian House, Joe Souki, would mandate that all physicians accept Medicare HB 1740 (and possibly even Medicaid) patients as a condition of being… Read More
