Medicare

CMS on Wednesday announced a new voluntary savings model for participating Medicare Part D enhanced plans that will cap Medicare beneficiaries’ out-of-pocket insulin costs at $35 for a 30-day supply, according to an agency press release.

Uninsured patients with ESRD who visited Texas emergency departments for hemodialysis treatments contributed to high hospital costs and increased strain on the health care system, according to an analysis of 2017 statewide hospital data.

A third of Medicare beneficiaries did not receive home health rehabilitation after being discharged from the intensive care unit, according to research presented at the Society of Critical Care Medicine’s Critical Care Congress.

President Donald J. Trump’s proposed budget for the 2021 fiscal year — which would result in reductions of $756 billion in Medicare spending and $920 billion in Medicaid spending over 10 years — was immediately met with criticism from the ACP.

February 9 to 15, 2020 is Cardiac Rehabilitation Week. In recognition, Healio and Cardiology Today have aggregated a list of the top news articles in cardiac rehabilitation. Readers were interested in Medicare beneficiary participation in cardiac rehabilitation as well as the impacts of referral rates, poverty, distance, anxiety and depression on overall participation.

After the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program was announced in 2010 and implemented in 2012, there were decreases in readmissions and increases in observation stays and ED visits 30 days postdischarge in patients previously hospitalized for HF, acute MI or pneumonia, according to a study published in The BMJ.

More physicians are entering large or hospital-owned practices and leaving independent or smaller practices, according to findings published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

The last decade of health care has seen incredible changes, beginning with the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010. The law has been challenged, altered and amended numerous times. Yet, it still has many unsettled issues and the cost of health care continues to increase.

In 2017, administrative costs accounted for 34.2% of all health care expenditures in the United States, twice the percentage spent on administration in Canada, according to study findings published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Recently published research indicates patients who are either uninsured or who receive Medicaid — referred to as being “safety-net reliant” — disproportionately receive hemodialysis at non-profit or independently owned facilities. According to Kevin F. Erickson, MD, MS, of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, this is concerning because it means these patients are “particularly reliant on a group of providers that continue to decline in market share.”