Healthcare, Senior Living, Economics
Yesterday, the Speaker of the House (John Boehner) announced that a compromise is forthcoming to alleviate, for one year, the pending 24% payment reduction to the Physician Fee Schedule arising out of the current SGR formula. Ten days or so ago I wrote a post regarding a House bill that repealed the SGR but contained … Read more
Earlier today, the House passed a bill that repeals the SGR formula used to derive physician reimbursement under Medicare. For more specifics on the SGR, see a previous post I wrote at http://wp.me/ptUlY-ae . The legislation is title SGR Repeal and Medicare Payment Modernization Act. Unfortunately, the fate of the legislation is predestined as the bill … Read more
Rarely do I write about a specific company as my work doesn’t focus on individual companies per se, more on industries and the policy/economics of health care industry segments. Occasionally, a company’s story typifies an industry flaw or trend or the same is illustrative of an endemic issue (Vitas for example). Amedisys’ continued saga of … Read more
In the last month and across a series of analyst calls (investment firms) that I field on a regular basis, a question repeats: Why is the demand for hospice declining? Of course the economist in me wants to opine in great detail about “demand” and what factors increase or decrease demand or, shift demand among … Read more
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post covering the Home Health PPS Final Rule for 2014. As I was writing that post, I simultaneously reviewed the Gentiva/Harden deal plus the recent quarterly earnings of Amedisys and Almost Family (plus their acquisition of SunCrest HealthCare). The earnings reports plus the analytics from these two … Read more
With all the news and among the conjecture, punditry and analysis that fits any twenty-four hour news cycle, I wondered with a few colleagues the other day, how predictable the events current with Obamacare were. Americans being who we are, our collective political memories and policy memories are short. I too, often find even the recent … Read more
Last Friday, CMS issued its final rules for 2014 Home Health PPS. As is typical within these final rules, earlier proposals are clarified and additional direction for the future becomes clearer. In this case, most people who follow the Home Health industry trends will find the continuation of prior year themes; rate reduction, episodic rebasing, additional reportable quality … Read more
A topic that I receive queries about from time to time concerns the payment practices of Medicare Advantage (MA) plans as the same relates to traditional Med A coverage under the PPS system. Recently (earlier this year and then again in October, CMS issued some fairly vague guidance to the MA world regarding a requirement … Read more
Most of my readers know by now that I am an economist by training and formal education. My clients know this as well. The net result is that I’ve been queried, almost to death as of late, as to what this current round of Washington folly is really all about. Is it about the ACA? … Read more
An issue that continues to confound the hospital and SNF industry is the growing use and thus, referral and coverage (Medicare) ramifications of observation stays. Fundamentally, and observation stay by current definition is a non-inpatient stay – an extended residence in an outpatient status. Truly, this a bifurcated problem or issue; hospitals wishing to avoid … Read more