Medicare
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Lawmakers Seek Lower Price On Bill For Vets’ Health Care
Stung by sticker shock, members of Congress are scrambling to lower the cost of a bill to fix veterans’ health care amid a growing uproar over long waits for appointments and falsification of records to cover up the delays at Veterans Affairs hospitals...
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Local Health Care Providers Embrace New Technology
For some of the area's largest healthcare providers, patient care is going to be impacted the most by what goes on behind the scenes rather than on the operating table in 2012. Information technology is an ever-evolving science that hospitals, physicians and nurses must interact with on a daily basis. Read More »
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Logging On For Life
Digital access to medical records empowers patients through better communication, smarter decisions, and continuous health tracking online. Read More »
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Lower Costs and Better Care for Neediest Patients
Can we lower medical costs by giving the neediest patients better care? Read More »
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MACRA: Big Fix or Big Problem?
In January 2017, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) took effect, ushering in a new system for physician payment in Medicare. With MACRA, policymakers ended the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) method for updating physician fees in Medicare and provided a permanent “doc fix,” relieving Congress of its annual duty to override substantial fee cuts that the SGR would have imposed. In place of the SGR, MACRA instituted the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), which intends to reward clinicians for providing higher-quality and lower-cost care...
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Making Medicare Data Useful
Medicare’s release of physician reimbursement data is “unprecedented data” at work, as U.S. CTO Todd Park wrote. But what will researchers, and ultimately seniors and taxpayers, be able to learn from it?
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Meaningful Use Payments To Providers Near $17 Billion
During the monthly meeting of the Health Information Technology Policy Committee, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services provided its latest update for the EHR Incentive Programs whose payouts now number close to $17 billion. [...] Read More »
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Medical Practice Managers Seek EHR Penalty Moratorium In 2015
Medical group practice administrators are calling on the Obama administration to prevent Medicare payment penalties under the federal electronic health record adoption initiative for physicians... Read More »
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Medicare Actuaries: U.S. Healthcare Spending to Soar to $5.631 Trillion and 20.1 Percent of GDP in 2025
In their July issue, the editors of Health Affairs published the latest estimates of U.S. healthcare spending, developed and revealed by the actuaries of the federal Medicare program. In an article entitled “National Health Expenditure Projections, 2015-25: Economy, Prices, and Aging Expected To Shape Spending and Enrollment,” the authors, predicted that the percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP) spent on healthcare every year across the U.S. healthcare system would grow from 17.5 percent in 2014 to 20.1 percent in 2025 with total spending rising from $3.3013 trillion in 2014 to $5.631 trillion in 2025...
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Medicare and Commercial Health Insurance: The Fundamental Difference
As the debate over Medicare continues in connection to America’s fiscal problems, it is critical to understand how Medicare differs from commercial health insurance for working people. There is a fundamental difference between these two types of health insurance plans, one social and one commercial. Read More »
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Medicare Bills Rise As Records Turn Electronic
But, in reality, the move to electronic health records may be contributing to billions of dollars in higher costs for Medicare, private insurers and patients by making it easier for hospitals and physicians to bill more for their services, whether or not they provide additional care.
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Medicare Blue Button, More Data Than Ever Before!
No longer are health records something that sit in a folder in your doctor’s office never to see the light of day! The power of having personal health data at your finger tips is a new and growing phenomenon with help from Medicare Blue Button... Read More »
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Medicare is Part of Us
July 1, the birthdate of our great nation, is also the birthdate of Canada’s emblematic health-care system...Now often referred to as unsustainable, this milestone provides an opportunity to reflect on the hardfought accomplishments of the past, to re-evaluate today’s system and to consider the growing debate about its future. Read More »
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Medicare Prescribes More Brand Name Drugs Than VA
Medicare Part D beneficiaries are two to three times more likely than those covered by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to be prescribed brand name diabetes drugs rather than generics, a new study suggests. Read More »
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Millions of Americans Live Nowhere Near a Hospital, Jeopardizing Their Lives
As a nurse practitioner, Wanda Liddell knew it was a medical emergency when she saw one of her patients struggling to breathe last month. But in her backcountry town of Cross City, Florida, the ambulance took 30 minutes to arrive. Even worse, it was another 45 miles to the nearest hospital. Liddell faces this situation often and always wonders, what if? She is one of many medical providers working in towns 30 miles or more from a hospital, a distance that can make the difference between life or death...
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