The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services hopes later this year to invite state agencies to participate in a pilot project that would pay nursing homes more if they provide better quality of care. Homes in the pilot could pile up "quality points" for reducing bedsores, giving good care to heart failure patients, and reducing staff turnover, among other activities. Those with the most points would earn higher payments, as would lesser performers that improved their point totals from year to year. Both groups would get equally large bonus payments under tentative plans for the demonstration project. Read more »
Higher funding for community health centers could help reduce the nation's health care costs by as much as $18 billion annually, according to a study. The National Association of Community Health Centers, which released the report at a news conference, said treating patients at their facilities rather than hospital emergency rooms would improve medical care while reducing costs. The report comes as Congress begins the annual budget process (S Con Res 83), which will impact both the program's funding levels and related programs such as Medicaid. Read more »
The House will almost certainly take a tougher position than the Senate on both discretionary and entitlement spending in its version of the fiscal 2007 budget resolution. That likely scenario will begin to play out when the House Budget Committee is expected to mark up on March 30 or 31 a budget plan that will likely attempt to trim mandatory spending programs while holding the line on discretionary spending. Bowing to opposition within their own caucus, Senate Republican leaders abandoned efforts to trim entitlements in the budget resolution the Senate adopted March 16. Floor amendments added more than $16 billion in discretionary spending flexibility above the $873 billion cap sought by the White House, including $7 billion in advance appropriations counted as fiscal 2008 spending. Read more »
Many low-income California residents now receiving drug coverage under the Medicare drug program have benefits less generous than they received as part of the state's Medicaid program, according to a report. The study, compiled by Avalere Health for the California HealthCare Foundation, found that coverage for California dual-eligibles—beneficiaries who qualify for both Medicare and Medicaid but who now receive their drug coverage under Medicare as part of the drug law—was inferior to their coverage under Medi-Cal for the four classes of drugs analyzed in the report. Read more »
The Bush administration announced that an additional 1.9 million seniors had signed up for the Medicare prescription drug benefit in the last month. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael O. Leavitt said the number of beneficiaries who had signed up individually for the drug plan now totals 7.2 million. "We are very pleased that more and more people with Medicare are taking advantage of this important benefit. Strong and steady enrollment has continued this month," Leavitt said. Read more »
Ongoing financial pressures and changes in physician practice arrangements have contributed to a decline over the last decade in the proportion of physicians providing charity care, a new study has found. The report, released by the nonpartisan Center for Studying Health System Change, found that while about three-quarters of physicians provided free or reduced cost care 10 years ago, that figure has now declined to about two-thirds. The drop occurred as the number of uninsured Americans grew to 45.5 million in 2004, creating growing stress on the health care safety net. Read more »