Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR)
In a late-year burst of bipartisan kumbaya, key House and Senate Committees have advanced legislation that would repeal the Sustainable Growth Rate or SGR formula Medicare uses to determine physician...
View ArticleLet the Sun Shine
Continuing its movement toward greater transparency, CMS has released the mother of data dumps – information on the more than 880,000 distinct healthcare providers who raked in $77 million in Medicare...
View ArticleA Brief Overview of the Federal Health Policy Landscape
With Congress heading out of town for a two weeks spring break – or, as they prefer to call it, a district work period – and HHS Secretary Sebelius riding off into the sunset, now is a good time to...
View ArticleWill Oregon’s Health Exchange Woes Spread?
As Congress returns to Washington, keep an eye on the fallout from the news late last week that the fairly dark blue state of Oregon will be shifting from a state to a federally run health exchange to...
View ArticleFirst of Two HHS Secretary Confirmation Hearings Set
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will kick off the vetting of HHS Secretary-designee Sylvia Matthews Burwell with a confirmation hearing on May 8th. Burwell, currently the...
View ArticleOh Baby: Medicare Wants to Focus on Early Elective Deliveries
Deep within the proposed FY 2015 Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) rule released a few weeks back is an interesting proposed new measure to the Medicare hospital Value-Based Purchasing (VBP)...
View ArticleFinally…CMMI announces first dozen HCIA Round 2 Awards
After much delay, the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) today announced a dozen awards under its Health Care Innovation Award (HCIA) Round two competition. The $1 billion funding...
View ArticleBattle Over Cost of Drugs Ratchets Up
The battle over the rising costs of drugs, fueled by Gilead’s Hepatitis C drug Sovaldi that costs $84,000 for a 12 week treatment regimen, intensified this week. Critics of the cost have taken to...
View ArticleDems Call for Hearing on Costs of Hep C Drug Sovaldi
Dialing up the issue of high-cost medications, Rep. Henry Waxman, the lead Democrat on the House Energy & Commerce Committee and Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado are calling today for a hearing into...
View Article$840 Million Available to Drive Practice Transformation
After a fairly quiet year in terms of new funding announcements, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) has released an $840 million solicitation that seeks to drive 150,000 clinicians...
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