Healthcare News of Note: Trump administration diverted nearly $10 billion in funds slated for hospitals to Operation Warp Speed
Healthcare News of Note for healthcare finance professionals is a roundup of recent news articles, including the discovery that provider funds were used for Warp Speed operations, the need to retain the Medicare telehealth expansion and healthcare antitrust issues to watch.
After OIG says hospitals may be engaging in upcoding, CMS and AHA dispute the finding
The HHS Office of Inspector General says a significant rise in high-severity inpatient admissions with no corresponding increase in length of stay indicates a possible pattern of upcoding by hospitals in recent years.
Hospital groups ask Supreme Court to reverse payment cuts to 340B hospitals, off-campus provider-based departments
The American Hospital Association and other hospital groups are challenging 2020 appeals court decisions that allow HHS to continue slashing payments to 340B hospitals and to off-campus provider-based departments.
Report: Large sampling reveals 30% of hospitals haven’t complied with any aspect of the new price transparency requirements
Hospitals have had an easier time posting the required price information for consumer-friendly shoppable services than for all the services in their chargemaster, according to a large survey.
Have hospital-at-home programs finally come of age?
The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly accelerated interest in developing and expanding hospital-at-home programs. For healthcare organizations that are pursuing risk-based contracting with an APM, a hospital-at-home program offers the potential to improve care and reduce costs for a segment of the patient population.
Price transparency: the next chapter
HFMA President and CEO Joe Fifer discusses the latest developments in the societal movement toward full price transparency in healthcare.
June 10-14: See what events are coming in healthcare
Highlights include an HFMA webinar on improving collections and reducing bad debt, conference calls by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and a Senate hearing on vertical consolidation in the healthcare industry.
Although relaxed regulations under Stark Law and anti-kickback statutes encourage better care coordination for patients, there’s also higher risks of noncompliance
The new Stark law and Anti-Kickback Statute changes provide exciting new opportunities to providers to better coordinate care. But with these new opportunities come new areas of compliance that will need to be addressed.
HHS postpones deadline for hospitals to comply with Provider Relief Fund reporting requirements
With new legislation having modified the rules governing the reporting of Provider Relief Fund payments, HHS has indefinitely postponed the Feb. 15 reporting deadline.
Healthcare News of Note: Noncompliance with new price transparency rules appears to be common
CMS's auditing of price transparency commpliance and Tennessee's Medicaid block grant program waiver getting approved are two topics in Healthcare News of Note. Also, HFMA revamps its “Voices in Healthcare Finance” podcast.