Medicaid

See the following -

Integrating Social Services IT Brings Benefits, Risks

Anthony Brino | Government Health IT | June 12, 2013

Whether or not they’re expanding coverage eligibility under the Affordable Care Act, state Medicaid programs are subject to a fair amount of financial and policy flux these days. Read More »

Is Single-Payer the Right Payer?

As is customary for every administration in recent history, the Trump administration chose to impale itself on the national spear known as health care in America. The consequences so far are precisely as I expected, but one intriguing phenomenon is surprisingly beginning to emerge. People are starting to talk about single-payer. People who are not avowed socialists, people who benefit handsomely from the health care status quo seem to feel a need to address this four hundred pound gorilla, sitting patiently in a corner of our health care situation room. Why?

Read More »

Is the Administration Leaving a Promising Health Reform in the Cold?

Sen. Ron Wyden | Huffington Post | December 12, 2011

How do these programs realize such savings? By doing a better job of caring for patients with multiple, chronic and often debilitating diseases. These are patients who regularly see multiple doctors and are in and out of emergency rooms and assisted living facilities. Instead of leaving these patients to fend for themselves, these programs send health care providers to their homes to check vital signs, organize pill bottles and coordinate the patient's overall care.

Read More »

Judgment Day: Dr. Margaret Flowers on What Follows the Supreme Court Ruling on Healthcare

Laura Flanders | The Nation | June 27, 2012

Margaret Flowers, MD, is a pediatrician whose exasperation with the American healthcare system turned her into a single-payer activist. In 2009 she was arrested at the Senate Round Table on Health Insurance for attempting to speak on behalf of a single-payer plan when single-payer had been cut out of the conversation. Read More »

Keeping Everyone in the Know: New CMS ADT Rule

On March 9, 2020, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued the Interoperability and Patient Access Final Rule aimed at enhancing interoperability and increasing patient access to health information. This Final Rule contains a new Condition of Participation (CoP) that requires all hospitals, psychiatric hospitals, and Critical Access Hospitals to electronically share (via an electronic health record [EHR] or another electronic administrative system) event notifications (also referred as e-notifications) with other providers across the continuum of care. These event notifications should occur whenever patients have an emergency department (ED) or inpatient admission, discharges, or transfers (also known as ADTs) in community hospitals.

Read More »

Let's Do Public Health Better

Eric Reinhart, who describes himself as “a political anthropologist, psychoanalyst, and physician,” has had a busy month. He started with an essay in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) about “reconstructive justice,” then an op-ed in The New York Times on how our health care system is demoralizing the physicians who work in it, and then the two that caught my attention: companion pieces in The Nation and Stat News about reforming our public health “system” from a physician-driven one to a true community health one. He's preaching to my choir. I wrote almost five years ago: “We need to stop viewing public health as a boring, not glamorous, small part of our healthcare system, but, rather, as the bedrock of it, and of our health.” Dr. Reinhart pulls no punches about our public health system(s), or the people who lead them...

Local Health Care Providers Embrace New Technology

Andy Fitzpatrick | Battle Creek Enquirer | November 26, 2011

For some of the area's largest healthcare providers, patient care is going to be impacted the most by what goes on behind the scenes rather than on the operating table in 2012. Information technology is an ever-evolving science that hospitals, physicians and nurses must interact with on a daily basis. Read More »

Logging On For Life

Beverly Merz | The Atlantic | January 15, 2014

Digital access to medical records empowers patients through better communication, smarter decisions, and continuous health tracking online. Read More »

Maine: Where Many of Nation's Eldest Population Stand to Lose Health Insurance

Kelly Mehler | Government Health IT | February 1, 2012

As Mainers head to the polls this week, many seniors await the federal government’s decision regarding Gov. Paul LePage’s plan to cut MaineCare benefits by $37 million.

Read More »

Many Medicaid Patients Could Face Higher Fees Under A Proposed Federal Policy

Robert Pear | New York Times | January 22, 2013

Millions of low-income people could be required to pay more for health care under a proposed federal policy that would give states more freedom to impose co-payments and other charges on Medicaid patients. Read More »

Meaningful Use Payments To Providers Near $17 Billion

Kyle Murphy | EHR Intelligence | December 5, 2013

During the monthly meeting of the Health Information Technology Policy Committee, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services provided its latest update for the EHR Incentive Programs whose payouts now number close to $17 billion. [...] Read More »

Meaningful Use, Health Information Exchange Expand In Hawaii

Kyle Murphy | EHR Intelligence | September 4, 2013

Recent developments in their state pertaining to meaningful use and health information exchange should come as good news to providers and patients in Hawaii, according to reports from the State of Hawaii Department of Human Services (DHS) and the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Read More »

Medicaid Expansion Didn't Yield Big Health Gains In Oregon, Study Says

Staff Writer | Government Health IT | May 2, 2013

Although expanding Medicaid coverage to some low-income Oregon residents substantially improved their mental health and reduced the financial strains on them, it didn’t significantly boost their physical health, according to a study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. Read More »

Medicaid Expansion, Insurance Exchanges Taxing State Health Agencies

John Moore | Kaiser Permanente | August 29, 2013

Medicaid is set to expand next year, and state IT departments are grappling with pressing deadlines, new eligibility rules and millions of potential applicants as they ready systems to accommodate the changes. Read More »

Medicaid Nation

Staff Writer | The Economist | August 30, 2012

THE Supreme Court upheld much of Barack Obama’s health reform in June, but struck down an important part. Mr Obama wanted to expand Medicaid, the state-federal programme for the poor, to a broader swathe of Americans. Under current law, state Medicaid programmes only have to cover specific subsets, such as pregnant women... Read More »