The budget deal passed late last week establishes the ACO “Beneficiary Incentive Program,” said by some to motivate beneficiaries to be more engaged in their care. The program would allow ACOs to pay patients if they make primary-care appointments. The budget agreement also will allow beneficiaries to assign a physician in an ACO […]
Getting physicians on board with value-based payment models does not necessarily mean they are convinced of the efficacy of these models, according to a recent survey by Leavitt Partners. A summary of the survey results appears below: Only 20 percent of physician respondents said either bundled payments or hospital-led ACOs would contain healthcare costs. […]
The American Health Lawyers Association released its list of the top 10 healthcare issues for 2018. Not surprisingly, healthcare reform and the status and future of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) came in first. Emergency preparedness, telemedicine and digital health and the opioid epidemic also made the list. The full list appears below, followed by […]
Hospitals will see some of their leading regulatory concerns addressed in 2018 by CMS, according to Seema Verma, administrator of CMS. Verma noted that the Administration “is committed to reducing the regulatory burden on hospitals.” Verma made her comments to the American Hospital Association (AHA) last week. The AHA’s president and CEO, Rick Pollack, […]
States that expanded Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) experienced improved financial performance and substantially lower likelihoods of closure, especially in rural markets and counties that had large numbers of uninsured adults before Medicaid expansion, according to researchers at the University of Colorado School of Public Health. “Those hospitals in the states […]
Hospitals and health systems, looking for economies of scale and the potential for reducing the cost of care, have increasingly taken the merger and acquisition (M&A) route. In partnership with the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, HFMA conducted a study of more than 750 merger transactions between 2008 and 2014 to examine how M&A affects […]
iProtean, now part of Veralon staff will be celebrating the holidays over the next two weeks. We hope you will celebrate as well! Enjoy your holiday season. Very little has changed in the tax reform bill from our report in late November. Here is a summary. Republicans have agreed to preserve tax-exempt, municipal […]
Moody’s Investors Service revised its 2018 outlook for not-for-profit and public health care from stable to negative, according to its recent report. It based its revision on its projections that operating cash flow will contract by 2-4 percent over the next 12-18 months. Revenue growth is under pressure because of very low reimbursement rate […]
(Source: Veralon, a healthcare consulting company providing services in strategic planning, mergers & acquisitions, healthcare valuation and physician compensation, and clinical transformation and value-based payment. Dan Grauman, an iProtean, now part of Veralon expert who appears in many iProtean, now part of Veralon courses, is the managing director and CEO.) In addition to setting […]
The Obama Administration used the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to advance value-based payments. The current administration, however, has been making a series of regulatory changes that “slow or shrink some of these initiatives and let many doctors delay adopting the new system.” Decreased incentives to participate in value-based care and a reduction in reimbursement […]