Affordable Care Act (ACA)
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Changing The Structure Of Health Care Delivery Systems: To Benefit The Patient, The Providers, Or The Insurers?
In an important series of 3 articles beginning on the Sunday before the New Year, “Doctors Inc.”, Alan Bavley of the Kansas City Star looked at the increasing acquisition of physician practices by hospitals, and the impact this has on access to, quality of, and cost of health care for patients. [...] Read More »
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Childbirth Death Is Way More Likely In The US Than The UK, And It’s Getting Worse
The US is one of only eight countries to see an increase in childbirth-related deaths since 2003, according to a study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. While maternal mortality has dropped by 3.1% in developed countries (and 1.3% globally) since 1990, it increased by 1.7% in the US during the same time period...
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CIOs Might Be Ready On Time For ICD-10 Deadline Next Year, But Will The Government?
John D. Halamka, chief information officer of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and co-chair of the HIT Standards Committee doesn't think enough healthcare organizations will be ready for ICD-10 implementation on Oct. 1. Read More »
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Clayton Christensen: American Health Care Is Sick And Getting Sicker
“We’re in a situation now where American medicine needs stronger leadership,” said management guru Clayton Christensen. “That is, executives who know how to wield power and drive change..."
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Cloud devs: We Could Have Saved Buggy HealthCare.gov
Millions of Americans flooded the new health insurance marketplaces when they opened for business earlier this month. What we didn’t expect were the glitches, bugs, error messages, and a website that looks like it’s from 10 years ago. Almost two weeks later, people are still struggling to log in to the Obama administration’s online insurance marketplace, HealthCare.gov, let alone shop for insurance. Read More »
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Cloud-Based EMRs
The concept of patient-centered health is a growing theme in healthcare. Terms such as "patient engagement," "patient-based" and even "patient-centric" are used ubiquitously as though they all mean the same thing and deliver benefits to both providers and patients. [...] But does patient-centered care actually activate patients to become more responsible for their health and wellness? Not quite, but EMRs are the start to that transformational model of care. Read More »
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CMS Officials Warned Of Security Risks Just Before Healthcare.gov Went Live
Less than four days before Healthcare.gov went live, two senior officials at the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) expressed reservations about the security preparedness of the site. Read More »
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CMS Supports Open Source/Modular Medicaid Information Technology
Investing in the future of Medicaid is one of the single biggest opportunities in the health care sector...Overall, CMS’ annual investment in state Medicaid Information Technology (IT) is more than $5 billion, enabling states to modernize their Medicaid IT systems to best meet their program, providers’ and beneficiaries’ needs. CMS and states are prepared to invest in innovative solutions. For this investment, we expect significant advances. Our new regulations require that states evolve their legacy Medicaid IT systems to leverage reusable solutions, and to practice industry-proven IT methods such as use of modularity, reuse, shared services (including Software-as-a-Service) by fundamentally shifting the financial incentives away from custom development. This opens opportunity to smaller vendors to develop focused solutions for use across multiple states or to introduce solutions from comparable sectors such as commercial insurance or large provider systems.
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Column: ObamaCare Killed My Sister
This Wednesday, my little sister, Julie, will be buried. She died because she delayed seeking health care for what turned out to be a catastrophic condition after her private health insurance policy was cancelled because of Obamacare...
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Commentary: 7 Challenges To Cost Control
[...] I argued that that the recent health care cost growth reduction is real, and that it could be maintained because incentive structures have the potential to link the self-interest of all major health system stakeholders with the social interest in cost growth containment, quality improvement, and better population health. Read More »
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Congressmen Voted Out Over Their Pro-Obamacare Stances Are Angry
Vulnerable House Democrats back in 2009 knew that they were risking their political careers by casting votes for the Affordable Care Act. And more than 60 of them — including some who didn't even vote for the bill — lost their seats the following year. Read More »
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Conn. Governor To Feds: Get Your Act Together On Healthcare.gov
Trade associations and others have fought the ICD-10 Oct. 1 deadline next year, mainly because of the difficulty, and some industry observers have questioned whether CMS can also meet that deadline. Read More »
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Conservatives and Liberals Agree: Medicare for All Would Be Constitutional
Conservatives and liberals may disagree about the constitutionality of the individual mandate requiring all uninsured Americans to buy health insurance from private companies or pay a penalty to the IRS. But there is no debate about whether single-payer Medicare For All would be constitutional. Read More »
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Consumers Abandoning Healthcare.gov
Can you blame them? According to Digital Trends (DT), "more than $500 million" was spent creating "the digital equivalent of a rock." DT's source is the General Accounting Office (GAO). Most spending went for contracts, saying... Read More »
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Consumers Asked To Verify Income, Other Information — Or Risk Losing Government Subsidies For Health Insurance
...About eight million people signed up for a health plan through the ACA exchanges. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 85 percent of them were eligible for financial aid, and the government is expected to deliver about $10 billion in subsidies during the first year. Healthcare analysts say some consumers will end up paying higher monthly premiums as a result of the verification process, while others may have to repay some or all of their subsidies if they are found to be ineligible...
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