Medicare beneficiaries will pay standard outpatient care premiums next year of $99.90 per month, $3.50 more than most paid in 2011, Department of Health and Human Services officials said. The deductible for outpatient care will decrease by $22. Read more »
Medicaid officials in states throughout the nation are cutting medical providers' payments, turning more to managed care strategies and pushing some costs on to patients in order to compensate for the biggest one-year increase in spending in the program's history, according to a new report released Thursday by the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. Read more »
Lobbyists were scrambling to pry loose details about how a surprisingly big package of Medicare and Medicaid cuts proposed by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus would hit the health industry—including to what extent, if any, the cuts might be used to fix Medicare's doctor payment formula. Read more »
The California Medical Association blasted a decision by federal officials this week to approve $623 million in Medicaid cuts that state officials asked for. The group says the cuts will deny poor people access to doctors, drive many sick Californians into costly emergency room care and badly weaken the state's Medicaid system just as millions of uninsured residents get access to coverage under the federal health care overhaul law. Read more »
Medicare recipients could turn to community health centers as the primary place for their medical care under a demonstration project federal officials recently announced, a program that will provide $42 million in grants over three years to 500 clinics in 42 states. Read more »
The House passed a bill that would repeal a requirement that government agencies withhold federal taxes from payments to contractors, and endorsed a second bill to offset the first measure's lost revenue. Read more »