Healthcare, Senior Living, Economics
This weekend, the House is reportedly set to vote on their version of healthcare reform – H.R. 3962. The bill is a “monster”; nearly 2,000 pages long. The title belies the fact that the Bill doesn’t just attempt to create “affordable health care” – it goes much, much further. For example, embedded within the hundreds of … Read more
Within the past two weeks, CMS released data from 1998 to 2008 for length of stay and diagnosis trends. What is interesting to note is the utilization trends (length of stay and numbers) over the period as well as the diagnosis correlated to utilization. For CMS and in particular MedPAC, the prevailing concern has been … Read more
Earlier today, Speaker Pelosi introduced the re-tooled House version of healthcare reform, now titled The Affordable Health Care Act. The 2,000 page bill is the result of weeks of backroom negotiations designed to forge a possible consensus, principally among Democrats, and to financially wrangle, a targeted budget neutral spending level. According to Pelosi, the Bill … Read more
If you are a baseball fan, you’ll appreciate the correlation between a baseball game and the present course of healthcare reform. A baseball game starts with anticipation and fanfare; speeches, the throwing out of the first pitch, the national anthem and the players taking the field. The fans settle in and the game begins with cheers … Read more
A product that has seen its share of struggles in the economic downturn is entry-fee CCRCs. To clarify, not all CCRC models are struggling and not even all entry-fee based CCRCs are struggling as certain regions have seen less housing market fall-out and concurrently, operators have done the right things to keep their census stable during the “down … Read more
Healthcare is a risky business; particularly in heavily regulated environments such as nursing homes and home health and hospice. The fact that a certain level of risk is omnipresent means that the opportunity constantly exists for an organization that improperly identifies and manages its risks, to suffer expensive damages ranging from financial loss to loss … Read more
The Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation issued a statement warning that the biggest area of remaining risk for banks is commercial real estate loans. Her statement comes as a result of continued rising losses on commercial real estate loan portfolios. To date, over the past two years, banks have written off $6.2 billion … Read more
In a post I wrote at the end of July concerning CMS’ 2010 rate announcement and compliance and regulatory trends, I indicated how the OIG was becoming more vigilant in reviewing hospice utilization, lengths of stay and in particular, the correlation between lengths of stay and hospice patients in an SNF. This past month, in mid-September, the … Read more
On October 1, the SNF industry received a 1.1% reduction in Medicare payments. On October 13th, the Senate Finance Committee passed its version of Healthcare Reform, commonly known as the Baucus Bill. While the Baucus Bill is the least penalizing to the industry, of the major health reform bills waiting in Congress, it is destined for the Senate shredder … Read more
The Senate Finance Committee this afternoon, on a vote of 14-9, approved the Baucus Bill out of committee, sending it theoretically to a floor vote. Sen. Olympia Snowe, a Republican from Maine, was the lone Republican vote in support. The Bill, a center of recent controversy in terms of its lack of reported details, incomplete … Read more