Although Congress took an initial step toward equal payments for physicians’ services regardless of where they practice when it passed the Bipartisan Budget Act last November, many office-based physicians still receive lower payments for the same services than do their colleagues in hospital outpatient settings. Read full article >>
House Republicans are considering using the omnibus appropriations bill to make changes to the Medicare site-neutral pay policy included in the budget deal that Congress passed in late October, Ways & Means Chair Kevin Brady (R-TX) said. Brady didn’t say what changes are being considered, but the American Hospital Association is lobbying Congress to exempt […]
Washington—There was generally positive news for Medicare providers in the new 2-year budget agreement signed into law by President Obama Nov. 2 as well as the 2016 physician fee schedule just released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). But hospital-owned physician practices will take a hit under the budget deal, and urologists […]
The Alliance for Site Neutral Payment Reform is lobbying to expand a new site-neutral pay law to hospital acquisitions of doctor practices, and group members say site-neutral pay is key to getting the new physician pay scheme right. As the alliance seeks to expand the site-neutral pay law, hospitals are trying to exempt outpatient facilities […]
The budget and debt-limit deal reached Monday night would cut Medicare spending by instituting a new policy under which CMS would no longer pay higher hospital-outpatient rates when hospitals buy physician practices and ambulatory surgical centers. Hospitals oppose the measure, but primary physicians and independent cancer centers support it. A previous story on Inside Health […]
Improving Medicare quality and efficiency, in order to keep the program solvent for the nearly 10,000 new beneficiaries who turn 65 years old each day,1 has been an ongoing priority for Congress and policy makers. Efforts to improve patient safety and outcomes, while tying payments to quality instead of quantity, have resulted in a seismic […]
As a practicing physician for decades, I welcome the opportunity to help improve the quality of life for individual patients. Now, as a physician executive for Highmark, a Pennsylvania-based health insurer, I am able to touch thousands of patients’ lives by helping affect the quality and cost of their care and creating more value for […]
Imagine this basic scenario: You are out of milk. You could go to your local convenience store and purchase a gallon for $3. But instead, you drive 25 miles to buy the identical gallon of milk for $5 at a large chain grocery store. If this sounds absurd, that’s because it is. However, it’s analogous […]
Imagine this basic scenario: You are out of milk. You could go to your local convenience store and purchase a gallon for $3. But instead, you drive 25 miles to buy the identical gallon of milk for $5 at a large chain grocery store. If this sounds absurd, that’s because it is. However it’s analogous […]
The American Hospital Association (AHA) and other providers are pushing back against a proposed Obama administration policy change that would introduce much greater site neutrality regarding how they are paid. Such a change would likely prevent many providers from charging more at outpatient facilities that are owned by hospitals than if they had been owned […]