efficiency news from FierceHealthcare
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CMS: 99 percent of hospitals to get full update for Outpatient Reporting Program
There's good news from the CMS for hospitals who participated in its Hospital Outpatient Quality Data Reporting Program: 99 percent of them submitted information correctly and will receive the full... Read more...
Adaptibility important for the future of hospitals
What are hospitals of the future going to have to do to keep up with increasing challenges in the field of healthcare? According to a new whitepaper put out by The Joint Commission entitled Health... Read more...
Candidates focus on change, but not cost and quality
Voters in the U.S. are very concerned about the cost of healthcare, and eager to hear about government actions that might give them more access. Of course, this cycle's presidential candidates have... Read more...
Bundled payments to be tested by CMS
CMS will run a project to determine if using bundled payments--payments for episodic treatments shared by both the hospitals and the doctors delivering care--can improve efficiency and quality... Read more...
SPOTLIGHT: Are patients or employees the focus of care?
Too often, hospitalized patients are subjected to routines--such as 4AM testing--which favor employees and physicians rather than the patients. The question is, to what extent can hospitals relax... Read more...
FL governor wants to end CON law
If Florida's governor gets his way, the state will repeal its certificate-of-need rules for acute-care hospitals. Governor Charlie Crist (R) included a proposal to eliminate CON rules in his fiscal... Read more...
AL study questions need for CON process
A new study by an Alabama policy research group questions whether the state needs to have a certificate of need process in place to limit the growth of healthcare facilities in the state. The study,... Read more...
SPOTLIGHT: An economist ponders consumer-directed care
Can consumer-directed care really improve efficiency and cut costs? Probably not, if we rely on the data that's currently being generated, suggests economist Paul Ginsberg. While mandates that... Read more...
Trend: Hospitalist ranks exploding
Increasingly, hospitalist physicians are becoming a normal part of the inpatient care routine. Since 1997, the number of hospitalist physicians has exploded, from a few hundred in 1997 to 20,000... Read more...
SPOTLIGHT: The fuss over physician ratings
Here's a view many FierceHealthcare readers will find a bit challenging. Over at Managed Care Matters, blogger Joe Paduda has taken the position that physician outrage over health... Read more...
