Dennis Dahlen: It’s time to look at what’s working — and what isn’t — in reducing care costs
There’s a surprising phenomenon taking place in Medicare spending — and it points to the need to look deeper when it comes to healthcare cost containment. For years, Medicare was viewed as the nation’s “budget buster,” with spending spiraling so quickly that some budget experts predicted no amount of tax money could sustain it. And…
Key Senate committee takes a close look at healthcare waste and prices
The U.S. Senate is intent on finding ways to improve the value of healthcare, according to takeaways from a recent hearing of the Budget Committee. Although other committees and subcommittees in both chambers of Congress have held meaningful hearings about healthcare policy and costs this year, the Budget Committee’s attention to the matter is especially…
10 Keys to Restoring Trust in Healthcare
The issue of restoring consumer trust in the U.S. healthcare system encompasses a wide range of concerns. Factors in the perceived loss of trust include anxiety and confusion over costs, entrenched inequity, a glut of misinformation about vaccines and other treatments, and data and privacy breaches. To examine the problem and explore solutions, HFMA’s 16th…
Medicare’s hospital outpatient payment rate for 2024 improves marginally from the proposed rule
The final rule setting Medicare’s 2024 payment rates and policies for hospital outpatient services and ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs) contained no major surprises and little to make hospitals optimistic about the government portion of their payer mix. Here are five of the most important payment and coverage takeaways from the rule, which totals 1,672 pages…
Leveraging investments to strengthen resilience: Key insights
The approach health systems take to balance sheet and treasury management varies significantly. One company's managing director dives into how organizations can take a balanced-scorecard method to investments using a tier system.
News Briefs: Medicaid DSH payment cut barely averted in September, still possible in November
Hospitals received a last-day reprieve from substantial cuts to Medicaid disproportionate share hospital (DSH) payments, with House leaders reversing course Sept. 30 and ushering through a six-week government funding package. Language in the bill ensured the start of a four-year Medicaid DSH cut amounting to $32 billion was pushed back from Oct. 1 to Nov.…
Dennis Dahlen: Are states losing patience with the pace of healthcare value transformation?
The pace of state-based regulation and oversight of healthcare providers is accelerating — and it could be an indication that patience is growing thin with federal, payer and provider efforts to improve healthcare value. Across the nation, we’re seeing a growing number of states adopt healthcare affordability boards. It’s a trend that started to pick…
Amid positive signs financially, hospitals continue to grapple with high costs in labor and other areas
The latest financial metrics for the hospital sector reflect a period of increasing stability but also sustained challenges. August financial data from more than 1,300 hospitals, as reported by Syntellis Performance Solutions, showed improvements in key metrics. The month-over-month increase in median operating margin was 3.5 percentage points, helping the year-to-date margin rise to 1.4%…
Why autonomous coding is having a moment in healthcare
Autonomous coding is growing in the healthcare industry, and the market is expected to reach $88 billion by 2030, up from $35 billion in 2022. Some expected outcomes of this include: Faster revenue cycle, less human intervention and improved patient satisfaction and care.
Hospitals push back on Senate report that calls out lack of spending on charity care
Not-for-profit (NFP) hospitals continue to be the subject of congressional scrutiny, with the chair of a key Senate committee issuing a report that questions whether they provide levels of charity care that are commensurate with their tax exemption. The report was released Oct. 10 by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), chair of the Senate Health, Education,…