PA Safety Net Admin, Author at Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania

PA Sets Terms of New Telemedicine Expansion

The Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare (DPW) has announced that it is expanding its use of telemedicine to serve the state’s Medical Assistance population. Telemedicine is widely considered an especially useful tool for serving rural patients.
Under the new approach, the program will expand the types of medical specialists who may engage in telemedicine, remove the requirement that referring physicians participate in telemedicine consultations, and establish specific technologies for use in such consultations.
DPW has issued a new Medical Assistance Bulletin presenting more information about its new approach.
Medical Assistance Bulletin 09-12-31, 31-12-31, 33-12-30 describes the new program and outlines procedures for engaging in telemedicine consultations. This bulletin can be found here. A fee schedule and provider codes can be found here.

PA Safety Net Admin2012-05-25T06:00:47+00:00May 25th, 2012|Pennsylvania Medicaid laws and regulations, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

Medical Assistance Expands Use of Telemedicine

Pennsylvania’s Medical Assistance program has unveiled plans to make greater use of telemedicine in the future.
According to a news release from the governor’s office, the program will expand the types of medical specialists who may engage in telemedicine, remove the requirement that referring physicians participate in telemedicine consultations, and establish specific technologies for use in such consultations.
Learn more about this Medical Assistance initiative by going here and reading the governor’s news release.

PA Safety Net Admin2012-05-23T13:22:36+00:00May 23rd, 2012|Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

Medical Malpractices Cases, Verdicts Down in PA

Ten years after the state Supreme Court instituted changes in how and where medical malpractice cases could be filed, the number of cases filed and the number of verdicts issued has declined.
Currently, cases must be certified as having potential merit before they are filed. Also, plaintiffs must file in the county where the alleged malpractice occurred. Previously, those with weaker cases often filed in counties where juries are considered more lenient.
Read more about how and why in this Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article .

PA Safety Net Admin2012-05-21T09:07:34+00:00May 21st, 2012|Pennsylvania Medicaid laws and regulations|Comments Off

PA Hospitals Doing Better, PHC4 Reports

The financial performance of Pennsylvania’s acute-care hospitals improved in 2011, according to the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council.
While hospitals’ uncompensated care rose 11.2 percent, to $990 million, the state-wide average operating margin rose from 4.37 percent to 5.58 percent, according to Financial Analysis 2011, Volume One, Acute Care Hospitals. Hospitals’ net income rose $769 million, to $2.69 billion, with 72 percent of that improvement coming from operating income.
Find PHC4’s news release and the report itself, which includes an industry-wide analysis as well as detailed information about the financial performance of every Pennsylvania acute-care hospital, here on PHC4’s web site.

PA Safety Net Admin2012-05-18T06:00:04+00:00May 18th, 2012|Uncategorized|Comments Off

MAAC to Meet

The next meeting of Pennsylvania’s Medical Assistance Advisory Committee (MAAC) will be held on Thursday, May 24 in Harrisburg. The MAAC advises the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare on Medicaid policy. Its meetings are open to the public.

PA Safety Net Admin2012-05-17T06:00:41+00:00May 17th, 2012|Meetings and notices|Comments Off

Readmissions and Poverty

At a time when Medicare and many state Medicaid programs are attempting to penalize hospitals when patients are readmitted shortly after they were discharged, researchers have found that some of those readmissions are linked to factors beyond hospitals’ control.
According to research presented recently at the American Heart Association’s Quality of Care & Outcomes Research Scientific Sessions 2012, differences in regional readmission rates are more closely tied to socioeconomic factors and access to care than they are to hospitals’ performance.
Researchers found that nine percent of regional variation in hospital readmission rates can be tied to patients’ poverty. Access to care, based on the availability of doctors and hospital beds, can be tied to 17 percent of regional variation in readmission rates.
The Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania (SNAP) has long maintained that the low-income patients safety-net hospitals serve in especially large numbers come to them fundamentally sicker than typical hospital patients and require more resources and more effort to treat. This research appears to support this contention.
Read more about the research in this news release from the American Hospital Association.

PA Safety Net Admin2012-05-14T09:25:32+00:00May 14th, 2012|Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania|Comments Off

Access to Care Declines

Non-elderly and uninsured adults have less access to health care than they did ten years ago, according to a new study released by the Urban Institute.
The study, “Virtually Every State Experienced Deteriorating Access to Care for Adults Over the Past Decade,” also concluded that this deterioration of access can be found in almost every state, is even worse for the uninsured, and is especially great in states with the highest uninsured rates.
Learn more about this erosion of the health care safety net and download the entire report here , on the Urban Institute’s web site.

PA Safety Net Admin2012-05-11T06:00:23+00:00May 11th, 2012|Uncategorized|Comments Off

Medicaid Raises Doc Pay

Primary care physicians serving Medicaid patients will receive a raise in their fees for the next two years.
The raises, a temporary measure mandated by the Affordable Care Act, will be in effect for calendar years 2013 and 2014 and will raise Medicaid’s primary care physician fees to the same level paid by Medicare for comparable services.
The $11 billion needed to pay for this raise will come from the federal government. States will not be required to provide matching funds.
Read a news release from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) about the new Medicaid primary care fee here, a CMS fact sheet here, and the newly proposed regulation here .

PA Safety Net Admin2012-05-10T10:13:00+00:00May 10th, 2012|Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

Impact of Reform

Health care reform is having a significant impact on entities throughout central Pennsylvania according to a recent article in the Central Penn Business Journal.
The article examines the impact of reform from several perspectives, including those of businesses, employers, insurers, providers, benefit brokers, and lawyers. Read about it in greater detail in this Central Penn Business Journal article .

PA Safety Net Admin2012-05-08T06:00:18+00:00May 8th, 2012|Health care reform|Comments Off

Newborn Pay Cut

Pennsylvania’s Medical Assistance program will no longer pay hospitals for care they provide to normal newborns delivered by patients who participate in the state’s fee-for-service program.
This policy change, which took effect on May 1, will have a greater impact on Pennsylvania’s safety-net hospitals than on other hospitals because safety-net hospitals are involved in far more Medicaid-covered deliveries than other hospitals – two-thirds of such births according to the recent SNAP report Pennsylvania’s Safety-Net Hospitals: Vital Providers, Vital Employers, which you can find here.
The policy change governing how Medicaid will pay hospitals for the care they provide to normal newborns is described in greater detail in a May 4 Medical Assistance Bulletin, which you can read here .

PA Safety Net Admin2012-05-07T06:00:56+00:00May 7th, 2012|Pennsylvania Medicaid laws and regulations, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

SNAPShots

SNAPShots

About PA Safety Net Admin

Home / About Us / Advocacy / Why Join? / SNAPShots / Contact Us

Home / About Us / Advocacy / Why Join? / SNAPShots / Contact Us