Healthcare Financial News

The health reform bill released this week by House Democrats would increase rather than reduce public spending on healthcare, according to a preliminary analysis conducted by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation.

As reported by The Washington Post, CBO director Douglas Elmendorf told the Senate Budget Committee in a hearing on Thursday that the bill would not bend the long-term healthcare cost curve downward. "The changes we've looked at so far don't represent the fundamental change on the order of magnitude that would be necessary," Elmendorf reportedly said.

Uninsured persons accounted for nearly one-fifth of the 120 million hospital-based emergency department visits in 2006, according to data released by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) from the Nationwide Emergency Department Sample. This database contains 26 million records from emergency department visits from approximately 1,000 community hospitals nationwide, representing 20 percent of all U.S. hospital emergency departments.   

Read the AHRQ press release.

A community-based prevention program in Nebraska helped bring about a 5.4 percent reduction in 10-year estimated chronic heart disease risk and a 7.5 percent reduction in five-year estimated cardiovascular disease risk, according to a report released by HHS. This is the second in a series of HHS healthcare success story reports.

The Nebraska WISEWOMAN program, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, provides screenings and counseling for low-income women, including referrals to specialists for those identified as being at risk. The program started in 2000; there are now 21 similar programs across the country.

A new members-only PowerPoint presentation has been posted to the HFMA Resource Library: An Overview of the Proposed 2010 Outpatient Prospective Payment Rule. This presentation identifies key features of the proposed rule, implications for hospitals, and how hospitals can respond to these changes.