Hospital readmission penalties seem to have been working as intended, by driving down 30-
day hospital readmissions and saving Medicare roughly $2.3 billion between 2010 and
2016. The unintended consequence, however, was that hospitals serving the poorest of
the poor were the most frequently penalized. Medicare has made changes to mitigate
that, but safety-net hospitals still struggle with reducing hospital readmissions largely attributable to social determinants of care, and they still risk penalties that could push them over the fiscal
edge.
Recent Posts
Medicaid expansion has helped safety net clinics stay afloat, reach more patients and reduce uncompensated care. That’s important to remember as the Trump administration again tries to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and as state and local leaders move ahead with efforts to limit--perhaps even undermine--Medicaid. Will Medicaid Expansion be repealed? If Trump has his way then it certainly will.
A whopping 21% of rural hospitals in the US are on the verge of closing, according to a 2019 report by Navigant. That's 430 rural hospitals across the country that are on the brink of closure. So, why are rural hospitals closing? They're closing because of declining populations in rural areas. As more people move to larger cities, fewer people go to rural hospitals, the number of Americans covered by government health plans has gone up and government reimbursement rates are low, resulting in the hospitals losing money. After losing money long enough, the hospitals close.
Finding Patients with Insurance Who Are Medicaid Eligible
Medicaid eligibility can be a huge source of untapped reimbursements for providers of every size. By identifying patients who presented as self-pay but are actually Medicaid eligible, providers can grow their revenue by up to 10% annually, according to a study byTransUnion.
The Trump administration couldn’t abolish the Affordable Care Act (ACA), but it did make significant changes to it and work requirements for Medicaid likely to reduce the availability of coverage or discourage enrollment. So, after years of declining uninsured rates, the U.S. saw coverage gains stall--and for some groups, even drop. That’s a key takeaway from The Uninsured and the ACA: A Primer, a 2019 report from the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF). It provides information on how insurance has changed under the ACA, how many people remain uninsured, who they are and why they lack health coverage. We’re taking a look at what this means for our clients--and how Altruis can help.