The Affordable Care Act establishes a national pilot program to encourage hospitals, doctors, and other providers to work together to improve the coordination and quality of patient care. Under payment “bundling”, hospitals, doctors, and providers are paid...
As Medicaid programs and providers prepare to cover more patients in 2014, the Act requires states to pay primary care physicians no less than 100% of Medicare payment rates in 2013 and 2014 for primary care services. The increase is fully funded by the federal...
To expand the number of Americans receiving preventive care, the Affordable Care Act provides new funding to state Medicaid programs that choose to cover preventive services for patients at little or no cost. This will become effective January 1,...
The new law provides incentives for physicians to join together to form “Accountable Care Organizations”. These groups allow doctors to better coordinate patient care and improve the quality, help prevent disease and illness, and reduce unnecessary...
Heath care remains one of the few industries that relies on paper records. The new law will institute a series of changes to standardize billing and requires health plans to begin adopting an implementing rules for secure, confidential, electronic exchange of health...
The law establishes a hospital Value-Based Purchasing program in Traditional Medicare. This program offers financial incentives to hospitals to improve the quality of care. Hospital performance is required to be publicly reported, beginning with measures relating to...
Today, Medicare pays Medicare Advantage insurance companies over $1,000 more per person on average than is spent per person in Traditional Medicare. This results in increased premiums for all Medicare beneficiaries who are not currently enrolled in a Medicare...
To ensure premium dollars are spent primarily on health care, the Affordable Care Act generally requires that at lest 85% of all premium dollars collected by insurance companies for larger employer plans are spent on health care services and health care quality...
The Community First Choice Option allows states to offer home and community based services to disabled individuals through Medicaid rather than institutional care in nursing homes. Effective beginning October 1, 2011. ...
The Independent Advisory Board will begin operations to develop and submit proposals to Congress and the President aimed at extending the life of the Medicare Trust Fund. The Board is expected to focus on ways to reduce costs, improve health outcomes for patients,...