Tentative deal to provide pandemic funding won’t replenish the COVID-19 Uninsured Program
A bipartisan Senate bill would pay for additional vaccines and therapeutics but wouldn’t restore funding to a program that reimburses providers for furnishing COVID-19-related services to the uninsured.
News Briefs: Biden administration will apply closer scrutiny to healthcare billing practices
A monthly roundup of top news for healthcare finance professionals.
Steve LeFar talks about the implications of care deferrals due to COVID-19
The economic and social impacts from deferred healthcare due to COVID-19 were already a major concern in the pandemic’s first year, portending severe declines in health status for Americans who stopped seeking care for fear of exposure to the coronavirus. In this Q&A, Strata Decision Technology’s Steve Lefar shares insights based on extensive data that tell the story of deferred care across the nation, and the likelihood that providers will see a rising tide of severely ill patients.
Beyond healthcare: What consumers want
The healthcare industry has a history of organizing business processes around the needs and wants of producers, not consumers.
Paul Keckley: Inflation’s impact on healthcare: 5 takeaways
For healthcare finance professionals, healthcare inflation requires intensified efforts to address five concerns: increased bad debt, increased operating costs, heightened public scrutiny of pricing policies and executive compensation, increased competition by privately funded competitors offering low-cost solutions and growth of “Occupy Healthcare” movements.
Cost Effectiveness of Health Report, April 2022
The April 2022 edition of HFMA’s Cost Effectiveness of Health Report includes a preview the May issue of hfm, which focuses on telehealth, a key tool for promoting value-based care CEoH. Another article explores ways to promote health equity in revenue cycle processes, and a case study describes how one health system embarked on an initiative to achieve greater diversity among its revenue cycle staff.
David Johnson: Cracks in the foundation (Part 4): Overcoming a brittle business model
U.S. health systems’ rely on centralized, high-cost platforms (e.g., hospitals) to deliver routine care in an approach focused on optimizing revenues under fee-for-service payment. Yet this approach is inefficient and asset-heavy. To build less brittle, more consumer-centric delivery platforms, health systems must decant procedures to more convenient, lower-cost locations as they pursue full-risk contracting.
It’s Patient Experience Week: Check out HFMA resources on improving the patient financial experience
The financial experience is an important yet often underappreciated part of the overall patient experience. During Patient Experience Week, there are many simple ways for a healthcare organization to celebrate its revenue cycle team’s accomplishments.
Medicare’s proposed increase for inpatient payments in FY23 doesn’t meet hospitals’ expectations
The hospital industry expressed disappointment with the proposed increase for inpatient payments in FY23.
HHS policy update: Recent developments include an extension of the public health emergency and notable progress in reducing the Medicare appeals backlog
HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra signed a 90-day extension of the COVID-19 public health emergency, ensuring the PHE will last until at least mid-July.