Following the Washington Post, 7/20 article, How a secretive panel uses data that distort doctors’ pay, legislators submit bill to reshape the way reimbursement for medical procedures is formulated. As reported in the Washington Post, July 23rd, Bill aims to reshape medical pricing, Peter Whoriskey writes, "A bipartisan group of legislators has drafted a bill that would reshape the way the nation pays [...]
On July 20, 2013, Peter Whoriskey and Dan Keating of The Washington Post wrote an article that describes how a panel of doctors within the AMA work in conjunction with Medicare to establish the value for medical procedures. The authors suggest there is less than an arms-length relationship and there may be the appearance of bias on the [...]
On July 8th as reported by the American College of Radiology, The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released its proposed rule for federal fiscal year (FY) 2014 changes to Medicare’s Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (HOPPS). For 2014, CMS is proposing to use FY 2011 cost data to establish separate cost centers for computed [...]
Despite delaying for a year the health insurance mandate for large employers, the Obama administration is opposing two Republican-backed bills that would make the administrative move law and expand the delay to individuals and the penalties for noncompliance. Read more about it.
Medtech companies have collectively paid an estimated $1 billion in compliance with the Affordable Care Act's 2.3% medical device sales tax. The 2.3% medical device sales tax has cost the industry an estimated $1 billion so far, according to a report released by a coalition of medical device lobbying groups, which called the milestone "frightening." [...]
Sony Salzman, MassDevice Oncall, reported, July 8th on the remarks of Jeff Mirviss regarding the Medical Device Tax and its devastating impact on the medical device industry. Read it here.
July 10, 2013, The Wall Street Journal, LAURA MECKLER, JENNIFER CORBETT DOOREN and PETER NICHOLAS When Obama administration officials delayed a central plank of the new health law—requiring that big employers offer health insurance to workers—they said it was to help businesses pleading for more time. Left unsaid was the federal government hadn't written key [...]
Evan Godt, HealthImaging reports on an article appearing in this month's Journal of the American College of Radiology, which examines the accuracy of reported decline in patient imaging over recent years. The authors speculate about the decline in imaging and the impact of increased patient/physician encounters. The authors recommend that policy makers know what the [...]
The growth rate in healthcare industry jobs outgrew other industries by ten-fold, according to a new report from the Brookings Institution. Read the report here.
In case you missed the news the PPACA (Obamacare) took an interesting turn over the Independence Day Holiday. Without anyone paying much attention a British company was chosen to manage the roll-out of Obamacare. Irony may not quite describe what happened but it appears the government is struggling to meet its own deadlines. Read about [...]