The Congressional bills to permanently remove the problematic Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula for calculating Medicare physician payments also contains provisions that impact more than just physician pay. To avoid an estimated 24 percent mandatory SGR cut to Medicare physician payments, Congress must pass H.R. 4015 /S. 2000 before March 1, when the temporary SGR [...]
A bipartisan team of U.S. House and Senate negotiators has reached a deal to repeal the unpopular sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula, according to MedPageToday.Under the arrangement, physicians will see a yearly pay raise of 0.5 percent for the next five years according to the article. House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the last holdout of six [...]
Although it's been four years since the Affordable Care Act became law, the Obama administration still has to release several major reform provisions, including details on essential health benefits and the employer mandate, that have been delayed. More than 12 rules could be published as early as this year, PoliticoPro reported. Read more here.
Discussing the administration's priorities for 2014, Lambrew alluded to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, a division of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The Innovation Center's work involves many initiatives specific to the post-healthcare reform landscape, such as ACOs, patient-centered medical homes and bundled payments. Read more here.
In a new legislative proposal, the Clinical Decision Support (CDS) Coalition charges that a bipartisan bill introduced in October 2013 to amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act "goes too far" in deregulating CDS software that requires regulation to ensure the health and safety of patients. Read more here.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and its contractors have done little to address vulnerabilities in electronic health records, according to a new report from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Office of Inspector General. Read more here.
With the world’s major producing reactors shutting down regularly or facing decommission, some enterprising solutions to medical isotope production are jockeying to pick up the slack in North America, according to a review published Dec. 11, 2013, inNature. Read more here.
The CMS is giving providers another year to show they've met the Stage 2 criteria of the federal government's incentive program to encourage the adoption and meaningful-use of electronic health records. That means the start of the next phase will be pushed back a year. Read more here.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT’s (ONC's) major announcement of a one-year extension for Meaningful Use (MU) Stage 2 got industry stakeholders talking. While there is added flexibility down the road, there remains no immediate relief as Stage 2 rolls out—leaving many in [...]
Continued scientific publications, legislative efforts, and public education about the value of CT colonography (CTC) are vital for achieving acceptance and reimbursement of the screening nationally, according to an article published in the December 2013 issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology. Read more here.