Remember the notorious “death panel” debate of 2009? Congress was considering a proposal to pay doctors for end-of-life counseling. Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin led the attack on the proposal, claiming that “death panels” would decide who lived and who died. Many conservatives …
Good Medicine Doesn’t Always Taste Good
May 12, 2015 Leave a Comment
One of the first healthcare lessons we learn as children is that good medicine doesn’t necessarily taste good. In fact, sometimes the best medicine tastes pretty bad. That lesson is brought to mind by last week’s Modern Healthcare article observing that many of CMS’s “five-star hospitals” scored low …
New CMS Ruling on DSH Appeals for FY 2004 and Earlier
April 29, 2015 Leave a Comment
It’s a measure of the backlog in DSH (for Disproportionate Share Hospital) payment appeals that CMS is still issuing rulings for appeals applicable to treatment of patients before October 1, 2004. On April 24 CMS issued Ruling No. CMS-1498-R2, addressing the nettlesome issue of how to treat certain …
Black Tuesday Falls on a Friday for Nation’s Nursing Homes
February 23, 2015 Leave a Comment
If you think of CMS quality ratings as the Dow Jones index, then last Friday, February 20, was the equivalent of Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929, the day the stock market collapsed. Why? Because on February 20 quality rankings dropped for a whopping 63% of the nation’s nursing homes. Did care at …
Ministry Motivation Costs Hospital $59 Million
February 3, 2015 Leave a Comment
Sometimes doing the right thing for the right reason can be costly. Last week it cost nonprofit Via Christi Regional Medical Center $59 million. In 1995 two Wichita hospitals, St. Francis and St. Joseph, consolidated to create Via Christi. For the two decades since then, Via Christi—as successor of St. …
Pain Clinic Sues CMS Over $25 Million Repayment Demand
January 8, 2015 Leave a Comment
Alabama Pain Center thought it knew all about pain, but nothing had prepared it for the bill it received when CMS decided to retroactively “reprice” certain compounded drugs: $25 million. The clinic is fighting back. On Dec. 29 it filed a federal lawsuit seeking a declaration that CMS’s action—and …