In healthcare, safeguarding patientsโ protected health information (PHI) is one of the most carefully followed rules, second only to behind โFirst, Do No Harm.โ Hospitals, physician practices and providers understand…
Telehealth is a key element of our country’s health care transformation – and health care providers, payers and patients are getting on board today more quickly than ever. After all, getting timely and convenient medical diagnosis and treatment using your computer, phone or tablet – anywhere, anytime, is of incredible value in our busy, technology-driven lives.
Lots of questions and headlines began swirling earlier this month after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released its hospital star ratings – a “seemingly” simple system designed to help consumers make informed decisions about hospitals and the care they deliver. While consumers are used to 5-star ratings for hotels and restaurants, the healthcare industry is clearly far more complex. As such, a cloud of mystery and skepticism surrounds this incredibly powerful rating system – especially for the thousands of hospitals who participate in Medicare and are therefore automatically subject to stardom whether they like it or not.
Last week, CMS reported that 800 hospitals will be required to forfeit 1 percent of their reimbursement for missing the mark on reducing hospital-acquired conditions (HACs). The race to eliminate preventable patient harm has always been a top hospital goal, but now it’s one tied to their reimbursement through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Hospital-Acquired Condition Reduction Program (HACRP). No matter how hard hospitals work to improve their performance, CMS will penalize the lowest performing quartile (25%) of hospitals annually.
After much ballyhoo and for years of promising a major overhaul to the cost-prohibitive Obama-era managed care rules, the CMS has issued a proposed regulation that makes smaller changes – not the drastic “gutting” that had been promised — to the standards states meet when running their Medicaid plans.
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