Healthcare, Senior Living, Economics
This past week, the OIG released a report that represents a more definitive study of hospice payments and utilization trends under Medicare. The report is effectively a follow-up to recommendations made in MedPac’s annual report(s) to Congress. The report provides a review of OIG’s analysis of the growth of Medicare covered hospice patients over the … Read more
In early May, CMS released its proposed rule for FY 2012 concerning Medicare PPS reimbursement for SNFs. As most followers of the industry from investors, to operators to developers know by now, CMS dropped a “bomb” to the industry indicating bluntly, a warning of a parity adjustment (reimbursement or payment reduction) of 11.3% or $3.94 billion. In … Read more
Suffice to say, I am behind in getting this post “out”. My best intentions of a month or so ago were quickly dashed by other more pressing commitments. Nonetheless, I did read the proposed regulations as produced by the Department of Health and Human Services/CMS on April 7 and worked through a stack of research on the subject of Accountable … Read more
MedPac (Medicare Payment Advisory Commission) just released its March report to the Congress on Medicare program and rate recommendations for the FY 2012 (beginning October 1, 2011). The full report is available in PDF form on the Reports and Other Documents page on this site. Below I’ve provided a summary of the key recommendations contained … Read more
The news we all hoped for came forth this afternoon, wrapped with a big bow just in time for the Holiday season – RUGs IV is here to stay. The House this afternoon passed a companion version of the bill passed in the Senate yesterday. President Obama is expected to sign the bill into law … Read more
Forty- five days past the October 1 conversion to MDS 3.0 and the interim RUGS IV payment groups and I still am getting a great deal of requests for analysis tools, questions on payments, liabilities, dates and rates for the Hybrid (RUGs III) groups, maps between RUGs III and RUGs IV, etc. While I lost … Read more
Due to a fair amount of travel recently, I’m a tad behind in pushing out updates, etc. Despite my rather harried schedule, I have kept track of questions, issues, etc. and in the next week to ten days, I will endeavor to get caught up. Please know that I do appreciate the comments and questions … Read more
In the past month with October 1 looming closer, I’ve been fielding lots of questions regarding the transition from RUGs III to RUGs IV. Instead of listing the questions and trying to recap my answers (my memory is good but not that good), I’ve settled on an overview or “summary”; the core of what SNFs … Read more
In previous posts I’ve written about the need for providers in all industry sectors to fully understand the compliance and legal risks that are inherent to the appropriate industry sector, as well as to health care today in general. As someone who has been immersed in health care operations and health policy for the past … Read more
In Part I, I wrote about my last week’s conversations, etc. regarding the home health industry, specifically Amedysis, the Senate Finance Committee inquiry, the industry impact via the PPACA and the likely consolidation and merger trends that are approaching. Suffice to say, not all of last week’s news and conversations focused on the home health … Read more