Pennsylvania safety-net hospitals Archives - Page 20 of 20 - Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania

Implementation of Reform Act’s Medicaid Doc Pay Raise Uncertain

With the Affordable Care Act-mandated increase in Medicaid payments to primary care physicians now just a little more than two months away from taking effect, much remains unknown about how the increase will be implemented.
Under the 2010 reform law, payments to Medicaid primary care physicians will be increased to the same level as comparable Medicare payments, with the federal government picking up the entire $11 billion tab.
At this point, however, there are no regulations delineating how the increase will be achieved, leaving unanswered a number of questions, including what the new rates will be; how and when they will be paid; which physicians will receive them; and how physicians caring for Medicaid patients through managed care plans will receive their enhanced payments.
The purpose of the temporary, two-year increase is to attract more physicians to the care of Medicaid patients in time for the increased Medicaid eligibility that begins under the reform law in 2014.
Many physicians serving communities with large numbers of Medicaid patients, and those employed by Pennsylvania’s safety-net hospitals, are expected to benefit from this pay increase. Currently, Medicaid primary care physician payments in Pennsylvania are just 56 percent of comparable Medicare payments.
Learn more about the challenges of implementing this primary care physician Medicaid pay raise in this Kaiser Health News article.

PA Safety Net Admin2012-10-29T06:00:15+00:00October 29th, 2012|Health care reform, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

Lawsuit Challenges Social Services Block Grants and the End of General Assistance Payments

A lawsuit has been filed in Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court challenging the state’s termination of General Assistance payments to low-income Pennsylvanians and the redirection of some state social services funding into block grants for selected counties.
General Assistance grants are small sums of money that were paid monthly to low-income Pennsylvanians. Many were thought to use this money for food, medicine, and other necessities.
Pennsylvania’s counties have long received social services funding from the state. Now, some counties have voluntarily agreed to accept less money in exchange for greater flexibility in how they spend it. Some of the services provided with this money are delivered by hospitals, including the state’s private safety-net hospitals.
The legal challenge is on procedural rather than policy grounds, with the plaintiffs alleging that the legislation that ended the General Assistance grants and created the social services block grant program violated a provision in the state constitution that requires legislation to address only a single issue.
Read more about the General Assistance and social services block grant lawsuit in this Philadelphia Inquirer article .

PA Safety Net Admin2012-10-26T06:00:16+00:00October 26th, 2012|Pennsylvania Medicaid policy, Pennsylvania state budget issues|Comments Off

Philadelphia Hospitals Hoping for Medicaid Expansion

Hospitals in the greater Philadelphia want the state to expand its Medicaid program as envisioned in the Affordable Care Act, the Philadelphia Business Journal reports.
According to a spokesman for the Delaware Valley Healthcare Council, Philadelphia-area hospitals are concerned that the state might not expand Medicaid eligibility. That expansion, mandated by the 2010 health care reform law, was made optional earlier this year by a Supreme Court decision.
Read more about why Philadelphia-area hospitals – many of which are safety-net hospitals – are eager for the state to embrace the reform law’s Medicaid eligibility expansion in this Philadelphia Business Journal article .

PA Safety Net Admin2012-10-22T06:00:32+00:00October 22nd, 2012|Health care reform, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

Hospitals Worry About Lost DSH Money

Hospitals across the country are worried about what will happen come 2014, when the Affordable Care Act’s individual insurance mandate and Medicaid expansion take effect and they lose funds they currently receive from the federal government to help with the cost of caring for their low-income and uninsured patients.
Hospitals that care for large numbers of such patients receive what are known as disproportionate share hospital payments, commonly referred to as “DSH,” from both Medicare and Medicaid. Under the 2009 health care reform law, however, those payments will be reduced drastically in anticipation of a significant decline in the number of uninsured Americans.
The leaders of these hospitals, however, believe that even the individual insurance mandate and Medicaid expansion will still leave them with many uninsured patients to treat, including illegal residents and those who decline to buy insurance despite the insurance mandate.
Historically, DSH funds have been vital to the financial health of Pennsylvania’s safety-net hospitals.
Read more about this situation, and the challenges hospitals believe they will face as a result, in this New York Times article .

PA Safety Net Admin2012-08-01T06:00:12+00:00August 1st, 2012|Health care reform|Comments Off

Are Readmission Penalties Bad Medicine for Medicare Patients?

As the federal government prepares to penalize hospitals with high readmission rates, new research suggests that appropriate readmissions may actually result in better care for the nation’s seniors.

According to new research, some hospitals that have high readmissions rates for the medical conditions that Medicare tracks – heart attacks, heart failure, and pneumonia – also have higher survival rates among patients with those conditions.

Such findings, while preliminary, call into question the manner in which Medicare intends to adjust future payments to hospitals based on their readmission rates in the value-based purchasing program it will introduce in October of this year.

This issue is of particular concern to Pennsylvania’s safety-net hospitals, which care for many low-income and dually eligible seniors who have had sporadic contact with the health care system throughout their lives and often present multiple medical challenges that require more than one hospitalization to address.

Read more about these new findings and their implications in this Kaiser Health News report .

PA Safety Net Admin2012-07-27T06:00:16+00:00July 27th, 2012|Uncategorized|Comments Off

New Medicare Program Could Hurt PA’s Safety-Net Hospitals

A new federal initiative will use patient satisfaction to help determine Medicare payments to hospitals.

Under the new value-based purchasing program it will launch in October, Medicare will use the results of patient responses to the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey (HCAHPS) as a factor in determining its payments to hospitals.

As reported in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, not everyone believes there is a tangible link between patient satisfaction and the quality of care a hospital provides – and not everyone believes the HCAHPS survey accurately measures either.

In addition, a recent article in the Archives of Internal Medicine reported that safety-net hospitals generally receive lower scores on the HCAHPS survey than other providers – a potentially major concern for Pennsylvania’s safety-net hospitals.

Read more about this controversial program in this Pittsburgh Post-Gazette report .

PA Safety Net Admin2012-07-24T06:00:56+00:00July 24th, 2012|Uncategorized|Comments Off

DSH and the Affordable Care Act

The National Health Law Program has prepared a useful Q&A about how the Affordable Care Act and its Medicaid expansion will affect Medicare disproportionate share (Medicare DSH) and Medicaid disproportionate share (Medicaid DSH) payments, both of which are so important to Pennsylvania’s safety-net hospitals.

Download that summary here .

PA Safety Net Admin2012-07-19T06:00:21+00:00July 19th, 2012|Health care reform, Medicaid supplemental payments|Comments Off

Medical Assistance Primary Care Rates to Rise

Rates for primary care services covered by Pennsylvania’s Medical Assistance program will rise upon implementation next year of a new federal regulation recently published in draft form by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
Under the proposed regulation, Pennsylvania must pay Medicare-level rates for Medicaid-covered primary care services in 2013 and 2014. Medicare rates are higher for such services than Pennsylvania’s Medical Assistance rates, and under the proposed regulation the federal government, not the state, will pay for the difference between Medicare and Medicaid rates.
This new policy was mandated by the Affordable Care Act. In addition to raising fee-for-service rates, Pennsylvania will be expected to revise agreements with its contracted HealthChoices plans to ensure that they, too, pay the better rates.
The higher rates should be especially beneficial for Pennsylvania safety-net hospitals because of the large numbers of Medicaid patients they serve.
Proponents of the higher rates believe they will improve access to primary care services for the Medicaid population and possibly reduce future Medicaid costs by helping recipients get more timely care and thereby avoid more serious illnesses.
Learn more about the proposed Medicaid rate increase in a Commonwealth Fund blog entry and find the entire proposed regulation here . Interested parties have until June 11 to submit written comments to CMS.

PA Safety Net Admin2012-05-30T06:00:45+00:00May 30th, 2012|Health care reform, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

Readmissions Report

The Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (PHC4) has issued a new report on hospital readmissions.
Health care reform efforts at both the state and federal levels have targeted avoidable hospital readmissions as major causes of rising health care costs. In issuing the report, PHC4 notes that not all readmissions are preventable.
Preventing readmissions is a particular challenge for Pennsylvania safety-net hospitals because of the difficulties many low-income patients have complying with their post-discharge medical instructions.
Read more about the report and download Hospital Readmissions in Pennsylvania 2010 here , on the PHC4 web site.

PA Safety Net Admin2012-05-02T06:00:37+00:00May 2nd, 2012|Health care reform, Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania|Comments Off

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