safety-net hospitals Archives - Page 4 of 5 - Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania

Safety-Net Hospitals Bear Brunt of Medicare Penalties

Hospitals that serve the largest proportion of low-income patients are suffering the greatest financial penalties under Medicare’s value-based purchasing program.
Collectively, hospitals that serve the most low-income patients are seeing their Medicare payments reduced 0.09 percent during year two of the Medicare program while hospitals that serve the fewest low-income patients have seen their Medicare payments rise 0.06 percent, according to a new study by a Harvard School of Public Health professor.
Medicare’s value-based purchasing program, mandated by the Affordable Care Act, bases penalties and bonuses on 24 quality measures.
In Pennsylvania, 45 percent of the state’s hospitals received bonuses while 53 percent were penalized; both figures are the same as the national averages. The average bonus for Pennsylvania hospitals was 0.24 percent – the national average – while the average penalty was 0.20 percent, slightly lower than the national average of 0.26 percent.
The author of the study suspects that the performance of safety-net hospitals may be suffering from the manner in which their patients are responding to the patient satisfaction survey that is one of the determining factors in evaluating hospital performance.
For a closer look at the study and its findings, see this Kaiser Health News report.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-11-22T06:00:26+00:00November 22nd, 2013|Affordable Care Act, Health care reform|Comments Off

Medicare Penalties Hurt Safety-Net Hospitals More, Some Argue

Penalties imposed on hospitals deemed to have excessive readmissions of Medicare patients may disproportionately target safety-net hospitals, some health care experts maintain.
Such penalties are part of Medicare’s hospital readmissions reduction program.
According to the recent New York Times article “Hospitals Question Medicare Rules on Readmissions,” “…health policy experts and hospital executives say the penalties, which went into effect in October, unfairly target hospitals that treat the sickest patients or the patients facing the greatest socioeconomic challenges.” The article goes on to cite a recent report in the New England Journal of Medicine, noting that “Large academic medical centers and so-called safety-net hospitals are bearing the brunt of the new policy, and the authors warn that the penalties could make it even harder for hospitals struggling to care for those patients with the highest needs.”
Read the Times article here.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-04-05T06:00:29+00:00April 5th, 2013|Uncategorized|Comments Off

DSH Losses Will Hurt Safety-Net Hospitals

Safety-net and other hospitals will suffer financially when Affordable Care Act-mandated cuts in Medicare disproportionate share hospital payments (Medicare DSH) and Medicaid DSH payments begin taking effect in FY 2014.
So concludes Moody’s, the bond-rating agency.
The losses will be especially harmful to hospitals in states that do not expand their Medicaid programs and to safety-net hospitals, Moody’s believes.
Currently, Pennsylvania has no plans to expand its Medicaid program as envisioned by the Affordable Care Act.
Hospitals face other specific challenges as well as a result of these cuts.
Read more about Moody’s assessment of the impact of future Medicare DSH and Medicaid DSH cuts in this report in Becker’s Hospital Review.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-03-20T06:00:57+00:00March 20th, 2013|Health care reform|Comments Off

Safety-Net Hospitals and Readmissions

Safety-net hospitals are 30 percent more likely to have readmission rates that exceed the national average – always a problem, but a greater problem than ever now that Medicare is penalizing hospitals for readmissions through its new Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program.
A recent Commonwealth Fund study quantified the degree to which safety-net hospitals’ readmissions exceed national averages, citing as the reason for those reasons that

Safety-net hospitals care for a disproportionate share of vulnerable populations who are low-income, uninsured, underinsured, or on Medicaid. They have substantially higher rates of chronic health problems, disability, mental illness, and substance abuse, compared with the general population. Safety-net hospital patients also have disproportionate personal and social needs that adversely affect their health and act as barriers to accessing and fully benefiting from care. These include homelessness, unsafe housing, and unstable employment. In particular, vulnerable populations are more likely to lack social support systems (e.g., family members at home) and housing stability, which contribute to a disproportionate risk of readmission after hospital discharge.

The report also offers strategies to help safety-net hospitals reduce their readmissions and avoid the Medicare financial penalties they now face for those readmissions.
Find “Higher Readmissions at Safety-Net Hospitals and Potential Policy Solutions” here , on the web site of The Commonwealth Fund.

PA Safety Net Admin2012-12-13T06:00:01+00:00December 13th, 2012|Uncategorized|Comments Off

Cost of Medicaid Expansion Would be Minimal for PA

Expanding Pennsylvania’s Medicaid program as envisioned in the Affordable Care Act would cost Pennsylvania $1.96 billion over the ten years beginning in FY 2013, according to a new report released by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
While that price tag may seem steep, it is only 1.4 percent more than the additional money the state would spend if it declines to expand its Medicaid program as the 2010 health care reform law envisioned.
Expanding Medicaid would spur a 52 percent increase in the number of Pennsylvanians with health insurance. Without the Medicaid expansion, the number of insured would rise 28.9 percent because of other Affordable Care Act provisions.
Pennsylvania’s safety-net hospitals would benefit greatly from the expansion of Medicaid in the state. Many of the uninsured patients they currently serve would almost certainly become eligible for Medicaid under such an expansion.
Learn more about how Medicaid expansion would affect Pennsylvania in this Central Penn Business Journal article. The Kaiser Family Foundation study on which it is based can be found here .

PA Safety Net Admin2012-11-29T11:41:24+00:00November 29th, 2012|Health care reform, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

Medicare DSH Cuts Loom for PA Safety-Net Hospitals

Safety-net hospitals across the country will soon lose important funding that helps them care for many of their low-income and uninsured patients: their Medicare disproportionate share hospital payments (Medicare DSH).
Come 2014, the Affordable Care Act mandates a significant cut in hospitals’ Medicare DSH payments. The underlying rationale for this cut is that once the health care reform law’s individual insurance mandate takes effect and states begin greatly expanding Medicaid eligibility (a reform law mandate made optional by this year’s Supreme Court decision), hospitals will have fewer such patients and less need for supplemental DSH funding.
But as a Kaiser Health News article points out, hospital officials are concerned that the funding will phase out before the expanded insurance phases in, leaving them with fewer resources to care for their low-income, still-uninsured patients.
Pennsylvania’s safety-net hospitals, which care for large numbers of low-income and uninsured patients, figure to suffer considerably under such circumstances.
Learn more about the phase-down of Medicare DSH payments and the challenges hospitals will face in its wake in this Kaiser Health News article .

PA Safety Net Admin2012-10-17T06:00:13+00:00October 17th, 2012|Health care reform|Comments Off

New Medicare Wrinkle May Hurt Safety-Net Hospitals

A new Medicare program that bases payments to hospitals in part on patient satisfaction with those hospitals could be especially harmful to the nation’s safety-net hospitals.
The Medicare value-based purchasing program, which took effect on October 1, will withhold one percent of all hospitals’ Medicare payments and then redistribute that money based on hospitals’ compliance with selected standards-of-care requirements and on the results of surveys of hospitalized Medicare patients. The withheld one percent will then be redistributed to hospitals that perform well based on these criteria. Beginning in 2017, two percent of hospitals’ Medicare payments will be withheld and eventually redistributed in this manner.
Learn more about the Medicare value-based purchasing program and how hospitals are preparing for the survey component of its payment adjustments in this Wall Street Journal article .

PA Safety Net Admin2012-10-16T06:00:55+00:00October 16th, 2012|Health care reform|Comments Off

Sequestration Could Cost Health Care Jobs in PA

Unless Congress reverses the sequestration of $2 billion in Medicare funding by the end of 2012, that cut in federal Medicare spending could result in the loss of nearly a half-million health care jobs across the country in 2013 alone.
And more than 37,000 of those lost health care jobs could be in Pennsylvania.
So says a new report sponsored by the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association, and the American Nurses Association.
The cuts are mandated by the Budget Control Act, which Congress adopted late last year. While discussions are under way in Congress to block or delay implementation of the sequestration cuts in Medicare, defense, and other spending areas, it is not clear at this time whether those efforts will succeed.
It also is not clear what cuts the federal government will make to save the required $2 billion.
Any large-scale job losses associated with reduced federal Medicare spending would no doubt hit Pennsylvania’s safety-net hospitals hard because of the large numbers of Medicare patients they serve and their already-thin operating margins.
Download the report describing the impact of the $2 billion Medicare sequestration on health care employment here and read more about the prospects for health care jobs in Pennsylvania in this Pittsburgh Business Times report.

PA Safety Net Admin2012-09-14T06:00:31+00:00September 14th, 2012|Uncategorized|Comments Off

NY Times Looks at Safety-Net Hospitals

The New York Times’ “Doctor and Patient” blog has taken a brief look at safety-net hospitals.
In the article “The Fraying Hospital Safety Net,” Dr. Pauline Chen examines the challenges safety-net hospitals face and the ability of many of them, even in the face of those challenges, to deliver quality care.
Read this New York Times article on safety-net hospitals here.

PA Safety Net Admin2012-09-13T06:00:03+00:00September 13th, 2012|Uncategorized|Comments Off

“Medicaid Works,” Foundation Declares

Medicaid improves access to care and saves lives and deserves to be expanded in the manner envisioned in the Affordable Care Act, according to a new blog entry on the web site of the health care-focused Commonwealth Fund.
According to the blog commentary, Medicaid “fulfills the two main purposes of health insurance – ensuring access to needed care and providing adequate financial protection from burdensome medical expenses.” It also cites research that “confirms that expanding Medicaid not only improves access to care and financial protection of vulnerable individuals and families, but actually saves lives.”
In addition, the blog suggests that Medicaid recipients have only slightly greater cost-related access-to-care problems than individuals with private insurance.
The Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania (SNAP) and the state’s private safety-net hospitals have eagerly anticipated the expansion of Medicaid eligibility mandated by the Affordable Care Act. In the wake of the Supreme Court decision ruling the expansion mandate unconstitutional, these safety-net hospitals now await for Governor Corbett’s decision on whether Pennsylvania will move ahead with that Medicaid expansion.
The title of this commentary is “Medicaid Works: Public Program Continues to Provide Access to Care and Financial Protection for Society’s Most Vulnerable,” and it can be found here , on the Commonwealth Fund’s web site.

PA Safety Net Admin2012-08-29T06:00:13+00:00August 29th, 2012|Health care reform, Pennsylvania Medicaid laws and regulations, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy, Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania, Uncategorized|Comments Off

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