News Briefs
CMS Increases Acute Care Inpatient Hospital Payments by $2.9B
HHS has finalized the fiscal year 2025 Inpatient Prospective Payment System and Long-Term Care Hospital Prospective Payment System rule. The rule will increase operating payment rates for acute care hospitals by about 2.9 percent, or $2.9 billion, as long as facilities meet quality and EHR reporting requirements.
(Source: RevCycle Intelligence, 2024-08-05)
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Older Americans Act Heads to Senate with Senior Living Approval
The Older Americans Act cleared another hurdle on its path to reauthorization and now heads to the full Senate for a vote. Several senior living organizations submitted comments on the draft, applauding efforts to support the direct care workforce but calling for additional resources.
(Source: McKnight's Senior Living, 2024-08-02)
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Report Recommends Reauthorizing Hospital Care at Home Waiver
The Bipartisan Policy Center released a report that recommends Congress reauthorize the pandemic-era Acute Hospital Care at Home waiver for five years so more hospitals and patients can benefit. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' "hospital at home" waiver has allowed hospitals to provide acute, in-patient level care to qualifying patients in their homes.
(Source: FierceHealthcare, 2024-08-02)
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Report Finds Healthcare Data Breach Cost Averaged $9.8M in 2024
Healthcare remains the most expensive industry for responding to and recovering from data breaches, a rank the sector has held since 2011, according to a report by IBM and the Ponemon Institute. The average cost for a breach in the industry this year was $9.8 million, a decline from 2023 when the price tag reached $10.9 million.
(Source: Healthcare Dive, 2024-08-01)
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Dioptra Platform Aims to Help Health Industry Assess AI Software
Nearly a year since the Biden Administration issued its executive order on Safe, Secure and Trustworthy Development of AI, the National Institute of Standards and Technology has made available a new open source tool to help test the safety and security of AI and machine learning models. The goal is to help healthcare and other organizations better understand their AI software and assess how well it fares in the face of a "variety of adversarial attacks," according to NIST.
(Source: Healthcare IT News, 2024-08-01)
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CMS Overhauls Hospice Quality Reporting Program Requirements
Regulators are sharpening their focus on several aspects of hospice quality data to help weed out fraud, waste, and abuse. Hospice Quality Reporting Program requirements have seen an overhaul in recent years as the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services works to curb malfeasance in the industry.
(Source: Hospice News, 2024-08-05)
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DOJ Unveils Program to Reward Healthcare Fraud Whistleblowers
The Justice Department is starting a pilot program to reward whistleblowers who expose healthcare fraud schemes involving private insurance plans. Under the program, whistleblowers who expose healthcare fraud targeting private insurers can collect a portion of proceeds if information they report results in a successful conviction.
(Source: Becker's Hospital Review, 2024-08-01)
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Hospitals Offering Both ER, Urgent Care Center in One Location
Facing an ultracompetitive market in one of the nation's fastest-growing cities, UF Health is trying a new way to attract patients: a combination emergency room and urgent care center. In the past year and a half, UF Health and a private equity-backed company, Intuitive Health, have opened three centers that offer both types of care 24/7 so patients don’t have to decide which facility they need. Instead, doctors there decide whether it’s urgent or emergency care —the health system bills accordingly — and inform the patient of their decision at the time of the service.
(Source: KFF Health News, 2024-08-02)
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Many Physicians Working on Vacation, Survey Finds
Many physicians think of PTO as "pretend time off" and face too many barriers to taking that much-needed vacation. Even while they are on vacation, many doctors are spending 30 minutes or more catching up on overloaded EHR inboxes and work email, which contributes to -- and worsens -- physician burnout.
(Source: AMA Wire, 2024-07-30)
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Survey Finds More Americans Optimistic About AI in Healthcare
A national consumer survey of 2,000 Americans found that 48 percent were optimistic about healthcare AI's potential to improve healthcare's accuracy, efficiency, and outcomes. One in four of those polled believe AI will make treatment cheaper, the survey shows, with 56% hopeful that AI-designed drugs will lead to healthcare cost reductions, Customertimes, the digital consultancy that sponsored the survey, said in its announcement.
(Source: Healthcare IT News, 2024-08-01)
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Amid Competition, Drugstores Experiment with New Looks
America's drugstores are testing smaller locations and more ways to offer care as price-sensitive shoppers look elsewhere. If these experiments succeed, the new stores might improve access to care and create a more lasting connection with customers, analysts say.
(Source: Yahoo Finance, 2024-08-04)
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