December 21, 2012 Mark Hagland
article
Complications of partisan politics threatened to cripple efforts to resolve the so-called “fiscal cliff” crisis on the evening of Thursday, Dec. 20, as a House Republican plan popularly known as “Plan B” failed to garner enough support to lead to a floor vote, throwing the entire process into confusion.
December 18, 2012 Mark Hagland
blog
As I write this, President Barack Obama and Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner are involved in complex, perhaps rather tense, negotiations over the so-called fiscal cliff and what to do about federal taxes, revenues and programs. In the past couple of days, the news reports and rumors have changed almost hourly, with estimates of possible Medicare cuts to providers shifting quite frequently. Whatever the end result of this process, analytics-facilitated continuous clinical performance improvement will soon be crucial to provider survival.
December 14, 2012 Mark Hagland
article
As negotiations over the so-called “fiscal cliff” enter a key phase, Sharon Canner, Director of Advocacy Programs at CHIME, speaks exclusively with HCI Editor-in-Chief Mark Hagland about the prospects for Medicare cuts and other issues for legislators on Capitol Hill
December 10, 2012 Mark Hagland
article
As the clock counts down to the so-called “fiscal cliff,” the negotiations between the White House and congressional Republicans reveal just how vulnerable healthcare providers are to potential reimbursement cuts and added policy mandates, as the federal government lurches forward to resolve many unresolved budget and healthcare policy issues
December 4, 2012 Jeff Smith, Assistant Director of Advocacy at CHIME
article
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services intends to waive certain quality data submission and validation requirements for hospitals in Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island counties designated “major disaster” areas for Hurricane Sandy by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, CMS announced recently.
December 3, 2012 Mark Hagland
article
According to news media reports on the afternoon of Dec. 3, Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner (R-OH) on Monday afternoon, Dec. 3, sent a counter-offer to President Barack Obama on the President’s initial offer of last week, as part of the so-called “fiscal cliff” negotiations that congressional leaders and the White House have been engaging in, in order to avert asset of tax increases and spending cuts set to begin to be triggered on Jan. 2, 2013.
November 30, 2012 Gabriel Perna
article
Like the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) both agreed and disagreed with the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) in its sharp critiques of the Medicare EHR incentive program in a recent report.
November 30, 2012
news
According to news reports on Nov. 28 and 29, President Barack Obama has proposed cutting $340 billion from Medicare spending over 10 years, in his fiscal year 2013 budget, as part of his initial bargaining stance with Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner (R-OH) and congressional Republicans, during the so-called “fiscal cliff” negotiations.
November 29, 2012 Gabriel Perna
news
A new report from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has determined that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) faces obstacles in the Medicare EHR incentive program because it does not verify whether the self-reported information from providers is accurate and thus the integrity of the program is in question. The OIG charges CMS with not implementing “strong prepayment safeguards,” in the 38-page report, released this week.
November 26, 2012 Gabriel Perna
news
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced the first three participants in a new data sharing initiative aimed at getting more information to consumers to improve healthcare quality. The organizations in the Medicare Data Sharing for Performance Measurement program are Health Improvement Collaborative of Greater Cincinnati, Kansas City Quality Improvement Consortium (serving the Greater Kansas City area in Missouri and Kansas), and Oregon Health Care Quality Corporation.
November 16, 2012 Gabriel Perna
news
Recently Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.), Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), and Scott Brown (R-Mass.) are highlighting a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that reviews a new data analytics technique used by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to detect and curb Medicare waste and fraud. The system, established as part of the Small Business Act of 2011, is not fully integrated by the CMS, the GAO report found, which recommended it be deployed in total by January.
November 14, 2012 Gabriel Perna
article
Leaders at the 972-bed Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center, a non-profit healthcare system that encompasses two hospitals in New York City, were mandated with reducing their patients’ average lengths of stay (ALOS), despite their uncertainty on how to quantify that at a clinical level. Thanks to a hospital created “clock,” integrated into their EHR, the doctors were able to do just that.
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