The Affordable Care Act expanded health coverage to millions of Americans in 2014. Because more people had insurance to pay for healthcare services, demand and spending predictably went up more quickly. But the important question for the future remains the same: Will healthcare be able to avoid large spending spikes and move to a more [...]
The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has postponed its January 1, 2017, deadline for physicians to start ordering advanced imaging studies with clinical decision-support (CDS) software that is based on appropriate use criteria (AUC). Read more here.
Providers and policy experts are split on the Obama administration's proposal to salvage the controversial two-midnight rule with a series of modifications intended to mollify its many critics. Read more here.
The Joint Commission rolled out new standards today designed to improve radiation-dosing safety. The standards serve as a precursor of sorts to the Medicare XR-29 rules slated to go into effect January 1. The new measures also serve as a reminder that CMS, the American College of Radiology and the Medical Imaging and Technology Alliance [...]
June 16, 2015 -- Recommendations for medical imaging are noticeably absent in the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission's (MedPAC) June report to Congress -- a welcome break from the usual scrutiny that radiology receives from policymakers. Read more here.
As the House Rules Committee met on Monday to consider a bill repealing the Affordable Care Act’s medical device tax, the Obama administration vowed to preserve the funding source to help finance health reform and offset the cost of the ACA. Read more here.
A study of New York providers participating in the Meaningful Use (MU) incentive program found "systematic differences" between early adopters of EHRs and those who did not use EHRs before implementation of the program. Read more here.
An ICD-10 contingency plan is needed in case the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is unable to process the new codes, members of Congress said in a letter to Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt. Read more here.
ICD-10 should not only be delayed, but scrapped, said Steven Stack, the incoming president of the American Medical Association, throwing his organization’s support behind a bill by Texas Republican Rep. Ted Poe delaying its rollout. “We support Rep. Poe’s bill,” he said. “We strongly support that.” Instead, Stack said the United States should wait to change [...]
The House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill to permanently repeal the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula last month, but if the Senate also approves it, the fix may create a new set of problems, according to Vox. Read more here.