The Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) is a Medicare value-based purchasing program that reduces payments to hospitals with excess readmissions. This performance program penalizes hospitals up to three percent of...more
Nursing homes and other long-term care facilities in New York must create pandemic emergency plans within the next 90 days and update them annually under a bill that Gov. Andrew Cuomo has signed into law. The legislation...more
A pilot program that could improve the efficacy of medication therapy management (MTM) services among Medicare Advantage (MA) beneficiaries would present minimal risk to federal health care programs and patients, according to...more
On December 11, 2017, the Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) posted a favorable Advisory Opinion, permitting a proposed pilot Program involving a collaboration between a pharmaceutical manufacturer...more
CMS Rejects Ohio’s Section 1115 Medicaid Demonstration Waiver Application – On September 9, 2016, CMS denied Ohio’s application for a new demonstration section 1115 Medicaid waiver, citing concerns over the State’s request to...more
On January 26, 2016, the CMS Office of Minority Health released a new Guide to Preventing Readmissions among Racially and Ethnically Diverse Medicare Beneficiaries (Guide). The purpose of the Guide is to assist hospital...more
FDA and CDC Issue An Alert on Properly Cleaning Medical Devices – On September 11, 2015, the CDC and FDA issued a joint advisory alerting providers and facilities about properly cleaning medical devices, due to concern with...more
CMS Issues SNF Final Payment Rule for FY 2016 – On July 30, 2015, CMS released the final Medicare FY 2016 payment rule for skilled nursing facilities (SNFs). The final rule will result in an estimated increase of $430 million...more
On July 31, 2015, CMS issued its final rule to update the fiscal year (FY) 2016 Medicare payment policies and rates under the Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) and the Long-Term Care Hospital (LTCH) Prospective...more
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has issued a comprehensive guide with an interactive toolkit for providers to target reductions in Medicaid hospital readmissions. While numerous CMS initiatives have...more
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) recently issued a guide to assist hospitals in reducing Medicaid patient readmissions. The AHRQ Hospital Guide to Reducing Medicaid Readmissions is the product of a...more
In what is believed to be the first legal challenge to the HIPAA Omnibus Rule (the “Rule”), a vendor of prescription drug adherence services is seeking an injunction to block certain provisions of the Rule related to drug...more
After years of planning and in response to the reality of cuts from Medicare due to excessive readmissions, more than 30 Southern California hospitals and health systems and other providers gathered on June 10, 2013 to kick...more
This week, CMS announced the shared savings results and the clinical achievements from the first year of the Pioneer ACO Program. During the first year...more
On February 28, 2013, the acting principal deputy administrator and director of CMS, Jonathan Blum, provided a progress report to the Senate Finance Committee on CMS’s efforts to reform the healthcare delivery system,...more