Health Care Delivery

With 36 states utilizing Healthcare.gov, and with at least 2 additional states considering enrollment, the concept of a national healthcare insurance exchange (HIE) may quickly become a reality.

The second day at the 50th annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology ended with a session entitled "Health Care in America in 2014: Current and Future Implications of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" (PPACA). The presenters provided an overview of the recent and anticipated changes related to the PPACA as well as its timeline.

Although they're not expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, Texas, Florida and other states are expanding managed care, bringing insurers opportunities as well as challenges, including competition from provider-based health plans.

There are rumblings that federal lawmakers may be willing to repeal Medicare's burdensome rule requiring physicians in critical access hospitals to make an educated guess that the patients they're admitting will be either discharged or transferred in less than four days.

One of the biggest beneficiaries of the health law's expansion of coverage to more than 13 million people this year has been the nation's safety-net hospitals, which treat a disproportionate share of poor and uninsured people and therefore face billions of dollars in unpaid bills.

Advocates for a single-payer Medicare for all health system are fanning out across Capitol Hill this week, lobbying members of Congress.

A change to provisions in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would allow insurers to receive federal funding for any financial losses they endured due to the health law.

Amid strong lobbying by business groups, support is growing to end the Affordable Care Act's employer mandate, a change that would see millions more Americans buying their health insurance through exchanges.

American College of Cardiology 2014

Parents in low-income families were less likely to delay asthma care for their children or avoid taking their children to see a doctor is they had lower vs. higher levels of health insurance cost-sharing.

Few states could claim Obamacare's first enrollment period was smooth-whatever the final numbers-but most will approach their insurance exchanges the same way for the 2015 window. None has asked the Obama administration to take over its marketplace or elected to abandon HealthCare.gov in favor of running its own.

The CMS on Friday issued its final rule for exchange and insurance market standards for 2015 and beyond, a potpourri of policies that address consumer notices, quality reporting and enrollee satisfaction surveys, the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP), standards for navigators and other consumer assisters, and policies regarding the premium stabilization programs, among others.

Using mystery shoppers looking for access to health care, Public Health Seattle & King County has found troubling indications that access to primary-care providers may not be as advertised.

NCCN Guidelines Updates

Avik Roy, senior fellow, Manhattan Institute, says that the problem with the community rating provision is that age bands can make insurance costly for young patients.

The American Journal of Managed Care will host the first gathering of its ACO and Emerging Healthcare Delivery Coalition this week in Baltimore, Md. The ACO Coalition aims to share best practices for setting up successful ACOs.

Many state legislators remain wary of the costs associated with expanding their Medicaid programs under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). However, a new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) that details the budgetary effects of the ACA said differently.

A left-leaning think tank whose research is often taken seriously by backers of the health-care overhaul has published a paper suggesting the administration should scrap the health law's requirement that employers offer coverage or pay a penalty.

Enrollees in some of the health law's most popular plans will face high cost-sharing requirements that the pharmaceutical industry says could keep patients from getting the drugs they need.

Roger Kathol, MD, president of Cartesian Solutions, Inc, and professor of internal medicine and psychiatry at the University of Minnesota, says that health reform presents several opportunities for psychiatrists.

The Obama administration says the number of Medicare patients returning to hospitals within 30 days fell further in 2013, amounting to 150,000 fewer readmissions since January 2012.

The former Congressman discussed his goal of finding common ground on what constitutes mental health while at the 167th Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association.

Hospitalists to field changes in patient care delivery, health policies propelled by Obamacare for decades.

Patrick J. Kennedy, former US Representative for Rhode Island's 1st Congressional District, says that he authored the Mental Health Parity & Addictions Equity Act in 2008, which was then incorporated into the Affordable Care Act in 2010. The parity law went into effect in January 2014, and by 2015, more health plans are expected to be covered under it.

The Affordable Care Act's (ACA) promise of broader availability of healthcare coverage, coupled with a federal law aimed at ensuring that mental health coverage is on par with that of other items in a plan, should mean that those with mental health disorders will finally get better care, right?

Despite the considerable resources designated to PCORI, its future remains tenuous.

States did little to improve healthcare access, quality, costs and outcomes in the past five years, according to a Commonwealth Fund report. Researchers examined 42 health indicators between 2007 and 2012, and found that in many states, access and affordability of healthcare actually declined among adults younger than 65. Healthcare spending rose $491 billion, reaching $2.8 trillion nationally.

The Federation of State Medical Boards approved a model telehealth policy this weekend that's made some providers of these services happy and others, well, not so much, because of its emphasis on using video rather than audio technology for a first patient visit.