The House of Representatives passed legislation to repeal Medicare's physician payment formula in a bill that also would delay the health reform law's individual mandate penalty, setting the measure up for failure in the Senate. Read more here.
President Obama has unveiled his $3.9 trillion fiscal year 2015 budget proposal, which allocates $77.1 billion to support the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) and $1.8 billion for health IT incentive payments. The HHS budget is about $800 million below 2014 levels while proposed allocations for health IT incentives remain the same as [...]
VIENNA - The mission of EuroSafe Imaging is to support and strengthen medical radiation protection across Europe following a holistic, inclusive approach. Europe is unique and it has the potential for coordinated radiation safety actions in medical imaging. Read more here.
Under growing pressure from hospitals and physicians, the CMS is delaying the most punitive aspects of the new “two midnights” rule for Medicare hospital admissions until after Sept. 30. Read more here.
A bill aiming to repeal the medical device tax sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) advanced to the Senate Finance Committee in February. Read more here.
Providers, payers and claims clearinghouses can look for no relief from the looming, Oct. 1 compliance deadline for the nationwide conversion to the ICD-10 family of diagnostic and procedural codes, the head of the CMS said Thursday. But some case-by-case exemptions will be made for providers having a tough time meeting their Stage 2 meaningful-use targets, she said. Read more here.
Accountable care organizations (ACO) have had varied success so far with diabetes and heart disease patients, according to a Kaiser Health News analysis of Medicare data. Read more here.
AdvaMed has surveyed its members about the medical device excise tax that Obamacare ushered in last year. The med tech industry trade group found that companies reported job losses, R&D cuts and slackening investment in U.S. manufacturing. Read more here.
Hospitals, physicians and their patients soon may know if a medical device is faulty more quickly than in the past thanks to a Food and Drug Administration final rule issued Thursday. The rule requires manufacturers to submit reports of injuries or deaths associated with their products electronically to the FDA instead of via a paper [...]
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 [...]