GAO Alleges that Medicare Is Overpaying Hospitals For Uncompensated Care – A recent report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that Medicare’s uncompensated care payments to hospitals are not well aligned with hospital uncompensated care costs.  GAO recommends that CMS improve alignment of Medicare uncompensated care payments with hospital uncompensated care costs, as well as account for Medicaid payments to hospitals when making Medicare uncompensated care payments. The full report is available here.

CMS Launches Rural Health Demonstration – On August 4, 2016, CMS announced a three-year Frontier Community Health Integration Project (FCHIP) Demonstration. Ten Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) throughout Montana, Nevada, and North Dakota will test new models of health care delivery in sparsely populated rural counties with the goals of improving health outcomes and reducing Medicare expenditures.  A CMS fact sheet is available here.

CMS Selects 14 Regions for New Comprehensive Primary Care Plus Model – On August 1, 2016, CMS released 14 regions to be part of a new primary care medical home model. CMS explains that the new model aims to strengthen primary care through regionally-based multi-payer payment reform and transformation of care delivery. Additional information is available here.