Hospitals assuming downside financial risk under value-based care models is the key to lowering healthcare costs and improving quality, CMS believes. CMS Administrator Seema Verma urged hospitals on Tuesday to accept new value-based care models and price transparency requirements or face greater administrative burden, less competition, and lower reimbursement rates under Medicare for All. “Our choices are […]
Now that revolutionary cancer therapy, Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell (CAR T-cell), is covered, let’s take a look coding CAR T. Last month the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) finalized the long-sought rules for coverage of CAR-T, novel cutting-edge, often curative treatments that utilize the patients’ own genetically modified immune cells to fight cancer. The […]
Helping patients understand their financial responsibility and pay for services continues to be driven by an outdated and unnecessarily complex experience. Last year, three in 10 Americans had an unpaid healthcare bill go to collections. As more of the financial burden falls to patients with rising costs and an increase in high-deductible health plans, consumers are frustrated […]
CMS’ proposed 2020 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule includes substantial changes to the rules for obtaining and maintaining Medicare billing privileges. A one-paragraph statement in the proposed rule calls for applying Medicare enrollment approval and revocation rules for opioid treatment programs to all physicians and other eligible professionals. The proposal would allow CMS to revoke Medicare […]
It is estimated that as high as 80 percent of medical bills contain errors.1 As healthcare costs continue to rise, so too is the need for healthcare payers to reduce overspending resulting from avoidable billing errors and improper claims reimbursement. Given the sheer volume of claims submitted each day, capturing and reconciling discrepancies based off of […]
The Trump administration has proposed updates to the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) it says would ease the quality reporting burdens in the program. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) introduced a new framework for MIPS called MIPS Value Pathways (MVPs) with the goal of making it easier for physicians to participate in the program. Under […]
As companies shift more and more healthcare costs to their employees, the doormen, office cleaners, cafeteria staff and other members of the union 32BJ SEIU remain among the lucky few who pay no premiums and have no deductibles as part of their benefit plan. Keeping it that way has been no easy task. With each new collective-bargaining agreement, the […]
While both providers and insurers have found it difficult to agree on a solution to surprise billing, experts on both sides expressed support Tuesday for banning the practice – thereby forcing insurers and providers to work out payment disputes among themselves—when patients have gone to in-network hospitals. The approach, which has been tried in Oregon, […]
President Donald Trump said it’s time for Congress to pass a law that stops hospitals and insurance companies from hitting patients with surprise medical bills. “We’re going to hold insurance companies and hospitals accountable,” Trump said during a news briefing Thursday. A bipartisan group of senators have been working on a bill addressing the issue, with the plan to […]
The global medical billing outsourcing market is poised to expand for years to come as medical practices face challenges related to multiple payers and medical code representation, and large practices consolidate, according to a new report by Grand View Research. Five billing trends, based on the report: The global medical billing outsourcing market is projected to reach […]