A tough election coming up but being in healthcare, one of the biggest issues is how will the new President change healthcare. Becker’s Healthcare provides an overview of Rand studies of what each candidate is proposing and a breakdown of how their policies would likely affect U.S. healthcare. 1. Ms. Clinton’s proposals Ms. Clinton advocates… Read More
Over the past decade hospitals have increasingly decided to employ physicians. In 2003, hospitals employed about 29% of physicians and that has dramatically increased to 42% of hospitals in 2012. Hospitals argued that this would increase productivity and was needed to coordinate care and improve quality. A study in the September 20, 2016 issue of… Read More
CMS administrators credited initiatives like the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program with saving Medicare beneficiaries from 100,000 unnecessary hospital readmissions in 2015 alone. Virtually every state in the U.S. (except Vermont ) has reduced its avoidable hospital readmission rates since 2010, new data released Tuesday by the CMS show. These improvements follow the implementation of various… Read More
A recent article in Modern Healthcare discussed data released by the U.S. Census Bureau on September 13, 2016 that the uninsured percentage fell to 9.1% (of Americans went without health insurance in 2015) which is the lowest rate ever recorded. This has been attributed to the Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansion. However, due primarily to high deductibles… Read More
Hospital ownership of physician practices has increased by 86% in the last three years, according to a new report. The analysis, conducted by healthcare consulting firm Avalere Health and the not-for-profit Physicians Advocacy Institute, found that from 2012 to 2015, hospitals acquired 31,000 physician practices in the U.S. Currently in mid-2015, one in four medical… Read More
An article in the September 11, 2015 issue of Politico found that almost all the major EHR vendors contained gag clauses that prevented physicians and hospitals from discussing safety concerns and failings of their EHRs. Many of the implemenations of EHRs and “meaningful use” have been rumored to be technological disasters. But don’t expect to… Read More
Becker IT report written by Akanksha Jayanthi August 26, 2016 reports that Houston-based MD Anderson Cancer Center reported a 76.9 percent drop in adjusted income for the 10 months ended June 30, a downfall it largely attributes to its Epic EHR implementation project.In its agenda book and schedule of events for the University of Texas… Read More
An article in the August 23, 2016 edition of Washington Post outlines how the the CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has declared sepsis a medical emergency. The article reports that about 72 percent of patients with this fast-moving and deadly illness have recently been seen by doctors and nurses and many may have … Read More
This August 15, 2016 article in JAMA looked at whether Tylenol was safe during pregnancy. This study concluded that acetaminophen was associated child conduct disorders during childhood. Acetaminophen (paracetamol) is considered safe for use during all stages of pregnancy, making it the most common pain and fever medication for pregnant women. Over 50% pregnant women… Read More
