News of Note: U.S. healthcare ranks last in comparison with 10 other high-income countries in a report by The Commonwealth Fund
Healthcare News of Note for healthcare finance professionals is a roundup of recent news articles: Study says U.S. healthcare ranks last, LGBT+ community faces disparities, and 18 groups demand better healthcare.
Latest data shows positive financial trends for hospitals, but will the good news be fleeting?
June was a promising month in terms of hospital financial performance, but the delta variant of the coronavirus threatens to reverse many of the gains.
Healthcare News of Note: Black patients experience higher rates of adverse patient events relative to white patients, study says
Healthcare News of Note for healthcare finance professionals is a roundup of recent news articles: Black patients experience more adverse patient safety events compared with white patients, telemedicine leads the VC-funded digital health category in 1H 2021, and 10% of the unvaccinated are taking a wait-and-see approach.
FY22 rule for the Inpatient Prospective Payment System finalizes a payment increase and key policy updates
The base payment increase for hospital inpatient services in FY22 will be 2.5%, according to a final rule issued by CMS.
Latest hospital readmissions data highlight the challenges posed by septicemia
For all diagnoses across payers, researchers reported a 30-day readmission rate of 14% and an average cost per readmission of $15,200.
Hospital-at-home programs are gaining traction and have well-documented benefits, experts say
A Medicare waiver issued in late 2020 has spurred more health systems to implement home-care programs for acute conditions.
Fitch describes the heightened risk posed by cyberattacks on not-for-profit hospitals
Cyberattacks on NFP hospitals increased substantially during the COVID-19 pandemic and show no signs of abating, Fitch says.
Financial Sustainability Report: July 2021
The July 2021 issue of the Financial Sustainability Report, sponsored by Kaufman Hall, includes an account of how one health system assessed the benefits and risk associated with moving its 340B covered-entity pharmacy enterprise to a Limited Liability Company. The issue also includes a commentary on CMS’s new Acute Hospital Care at Home program and a discussion of a new metric, equivalent net patient revenue (ENPR), which organizations can use to assess the relative value of proposed investments in alternative revenue sources.
Study establishes a link between surges in COVID-19 cases and risk of mortality at hospitals
Statistical analysis shows nearly a quarter of COVID-19 deaths during the first six months of the pandemic could be ascribed to high caseloads at hospitals.
In 2022 OPPS rule, CMS plans to reinstate policies pertaining to the inpatient-only and ASC covered-procedures lists
The 2022 proposed rule for the Outpatient Prospective Payment System would reverse 2021 policies that began to phase out the inpatient-only list of procedures and expand the covered-procedures list for ambulatory surgical centers.