National Health IT Week wrapped up on Friday. This may have been the most eventful week in the ten year history of the event, which is organized by the Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS). Below are a few of the highlights (each of which could likely carry its own blog post): Stage 3 …
Two More Hospitals Qualify for Exception to Exception to Grandfather Exception to Elimination of Whole Hospital Exception to Stark Law Prohibition
September 17, 2015 Leave a Comment
The Stark Law generally prohibits physicians from referring Medicare and Medicaid patients to facilities in which they have an ownership interest. There used to be a “whole hospital exception” excluding entire hospitals (as contrasted to departments or parts of hospitals) from the prohibition. The …
Brace Yourself for another Round of Death Panel Debate
July 9, 2015 Leave a Comment
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 …
The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Friend
April 1, 2015 Leave a Comment
We don’t normally think of American Hospital Association and the Federation of American Hospitals as friends. After all, the AHA represents nonprofits, while the FAH represents for-profits. But in recent days something has brought them together: their mutual opposition to the physician-owned hospitals’ …