medicare patients news from FierceHealthcare
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Study: Hospitals spent $30B on avoidable admissions in '06
A new federal report suggests that in 2006, hospitals spent $30.8 billion on 4.4 million hospital admissions that might have been avoidable. The report, which was compiled by the Agency for... Read more...
CMS says doctors earned $16.7M on P4P demo
You've gotta love it when CMS gives out money above and beyond the usual reimbursement rates--and it's even better when the bonuses involved work out for pretty much everyone involved. That's the... Read more...
Case study: How TN physicians are changing their practice
With Medicare cuts looming, many physicians vowed that they'd stop accepting Medicare patients entirely if and when the cuts went through. The thing is, even though Medicare cuts have been held off,... Read more...
Almost half of TX doctors opting out of Medicare
In Texas, it appears that officials' worst fears about Medicare acceptance are coming to pass. According to a recent survey by the Texas Medical Association, only 58 percent of doctors in the state... Read more...
Louisiana MDs win legal battle over patient record disclosure
A group of Louisiana physicians have won their battle to keep their patients' records out of the hands of a pharmaceutical company--though they may face future challenges on the issue. The dispute... Read more...
Medicare lab test pilot on hold
Medicare has been forced to put a pilot program designed to cut the cost of lab tests on hold after losing a battle in court. CMS had asked labs to bid competitively on prices to provide 303 standard... Read more...
Study: Errors caused 200K+ deaths from '04 to '06
The story doesn't get any prettier the more often its told. This set of data, from the fifth annual Patient Safety in American Hospitals study, makes a point often made elsewhere--that preventable... Read more...
Medicare releases volume, customer satisfaction data
For the first time, Medicare has released volume and payment information for a list of selected conditions, along with the results from its new consumer satisfaction survey, the Hospital Consumer... Read more...
Senators ask CMS to keep disease-mgmt program
Last month, CMS decided to discontinue its planned three-year Medicare Health Support program--aimed at managing chronic diseases more effectively--arguing that initial results hadn't met quality,... Read more...
Congress targets MD-owned specialty hospitals
For a while new, some key members of Congress have been gearing up to impose new... Read more...
