How a health system goes above and beyond in its price transparency efforts
By maintaining a patient-centric perspective, hospitals and health systems can find opportunities to look beyond regulatory requirements and incorporate top-class price transparency models, according to a recent online discussion. “We want to, first and foremost, empower and equip our customers to make informed decisions about their healthcare services and really shop for the best value,”…
Hospital advocates bemoan the small Medicare payment increase proposed for FY25
The payment increase described in Medicare’s FY25 proposed rule for acute care and long-term care hospitals falls well short of what hospitals need to keep up with costs, advocates say. The payment rate would rise by 2.6% for hospitals that fulfill quality-reporting requirements and meet the criteria to be designated as meaningful users of electronic…
Hospital finances are on the upswing, but the toll of the Change Healthcare outage is yet to be seen
Note: The second section of this article was updated where noted with a new comment from Fitch Ratings. There is reason to be optimistic about the state of hospital finances, but the impact of the Change Healthcare cyberattack has added uncertainty to the forecasts. Financial metrics for the first two months of 2024 continued to…
Site-neutral payment has backing in healthcare policy circles, but its efficacy as a cost restraint is unclear
The concept of site-neutral payment continues to receive support from members of Congress and healthcare policy analysts, as demonstrated during a recent hearing. The Jan. 31 hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Health Subcommittee was intended, in part, to promote pending legislation that would strengthen price transparency and implement other policies designed to…
Healthcare Blame Game: Patient Rights Advocate’s distortion of price transparency regulations and data, and the ad campaign that’s catching attention
Patient Rights Advocate (PRA) has engaged hip hop artists like Fat Joe, Busta Rhymes and Method Man in its “Power to the Patients” campaign, claiming that regulations around price transparency are not being enforced, allowing hospitals to hide their prices and “charge whatever they want.” On this episode, HFMA Policy Director Shawn Stack and Ruth Lande, vice president of hospital relations at RIP Medical Debt, discuss PRA’s misinterpretation of price transparency regulations and hospital pricing.
Continued 340B eligibility is at risk for hundreds of hospitals thanks to pandemic-related factors
Hospitals that rely on savings from the 340B Drug Pricing Program should examine the possibility that they’ll soon be rendered ineligible. Several factors are having an industrywide impact on the disproportionate share hospital (DSH) adjustment percentage, and if that tally drops below a certain threshold on a hospital’s Medicare cost report, the hospital cannot receive…
Leveraging the supply chain for cost reduction
Learn from seven healthcare finance executives about the different strategies used to help reduce their hospital's costs using technology, transparency and automation in this roundtable.
News Briefs: A new fee is set for using the No Surprises Act arbitration portal
Bringing out-of-network payment disputes to arbitration under the No Surprises Act in 2024 will be less expensive than previously proposed. In a final rule, the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and Treasury established the administrative fee for using the independent dispute resolution (IDR) portal at $115 per case, effective Jan. 22. That’s…
Biden administration announces effort to make healthcare more competitive and transparent
Providers and insurers should be on the lookout for the Biden administration to hand down regulations and guidance intended to promote competition in healthcare. The White House in December released a fact sheet stating its position that a lack of competition affects healthcare prices and accessibility for consumers. Drug costs have been a target of…
Employer-sponsored healthcare coverage would benefit from better access to data, Congress is told
Employers can stimulate efforts to improve the value of healthcare, but they need help in the form of better access to claims data and prices, according to testimony at a recent congressional hearing. With those tools in hand, employers can more easily forge provider partnerships that lower costs and raise healthcare quality, health benefit administrators…