Healthcare, Senior Living, Economics
With Congress on recess, the temporary extension of the Part B therapy rate cuts ended on March 31. As of today, with Congress still on “holiday”, the Part B therapy rate cuts remain in effect. Best knowledge has it that Congress is working on another temporary extension that would retro to April 1 and last through April 30. … Read more
In a bit of an indirect manner, Assisted Living got a boost from health care reform, albeit in a typical governmental fashion. With the Feds willing to use Medicaid as the vehicle for expanded coverage programs for underinsured (those within 150% of the poverty limit with high-deductible plans) and the uninsured, coupled with additional funding for Home … Read more
I’m a tad behind where I hoped to be in terms of getting these posts out. Its been a bit busy over the last ten days or so but headed into the Holiday weekend, a break in the schedule affords me the opportunity to “maybe” get caught up. Of all of the industry sectors touched by … Read more
Earlier this week, Medpac (Medicare Payment and Advisory Commission) released its report to Congress. Primary among Medpac’s duties is its provision of recommendations regarding payment updates under Medicare. Below, I have broken out and summarized the recommendations. Hospice (the points below the first bullet are continued recommendations from 2009) 2011 rate is the market-basket less a … Read more
An issue that I am fielding a fair number of inquiries about lately involves Medicare patients spending more than three days in a hospital, subsequently ‘discharged’ to a SNF and the SNF learning later that the patient was never technically admitted to the hospital. Mostly, the inquiries I am getting are along the line of “what’s … 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
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
In March, I wrote about the MedPAC recommendations to change the Medicare Hospice program and payment system. Yesterday, CMS announced the final (2010) payment for Hospice as well as the implementation structure of some key MedPAC recommendations. The final rule will be published August 6th in the Federal Register. For FY 2010 (commencing October 1), … Read more