The Secret of Success for Independent and Thriving Hospitals? Consolidation remains a major trend in the healthcare industry, especially among hospitals. In 2016, there were 102 announced partnership and transaction deals, compared to 66 in 2010, according to a Kaufman, Hall & Associates analysis. In the current climate of declining…
The Secret of Success for Independent and Thriving Hospitals? Consolidation remains a major trend in the healthcare industry, especially among hospitals. In 2016, there were 102 announced partnership and transaction deals, compared to 66 in 2010, according to a Kaufman, Hall & Associates analysis. In the current climate of declining…
Generic Medications Aren’t Easy Solution to Growing Drug Expenditures Recent years have seen increasing growth in overall prescription drug spending, driven in part by increased demand from the larger insured population and the introduction of new branded pharmaceuticals. It’s long been understood that generic and biosimilar pharmaceuticals have the potential…
Readmission Prevention Not Always Worth the (Financial) Cost A recent study that has been covered in several news outlets proposes an interesting conclusion: hospital quality improvement initiatives that successfully reduce preventable readmissions may not always be cost effective. The study, “Economic Evaluation of Quality Improvement Interventions Designed to Prevent Hospital…
Human Error, Not Hacking, Most Common Cause of Data Breaches at VA Hospitals The growth of health IT has brought new clinical and administrative capabilities to healthcare delivery, increasing efficiency and allowing data-driven care. But security remains a serious problem – especially for the Veteran’s Affairs Healthcare System. A recent…
Hospital Size Strongly Associated with Higher Infection Rates, to a Point Though hospitals have successfully reduced the rate of hospital-acquired conditions (HACs) since the introduction of the ACA and associated penalty programs, progress has slowed in recent years and some infection rates have increased. Nearly 250,000 patients experience one or…
Can a Medicaid Admission be Profitable? Medicaid reimbursement has traditionally been something of a bitter pill for healthcare providers, especially acute-care hospitals. Medicaid rates vary across states and locations, but the average figure is usually said to be only about 60 percent of Medicare or private insurer rates, depending on…
Value-Based Purchasing: A Bad Deal for Safety-Net Hospitals? Hospitals are facing more pressure to improve outcomes and deliver better care than ever before. In addition to the spread of performance-based reimbursement agreements, acute-care providers are also subject to regulatory programs, such as the value-based purchasing (VBP) and readmissions reduction programs,…
Instituting True Risk-Based Payments Guest post by Mark Marten of HealthCare Information Management, Inc In a time where many in this nation are confused about the direction of health care, we look toward the future. Regardless of the design one thing is clear, we need more accountability in health care. There…
The VA Healthcare System: A Broken System with Superior Quality The Veterans’ Affairs Healthcare System has weathered a lot of criticism over the past several years, starting back in the early 1990s prior to a series of reforms and more recently after the disclosure of a secret wait list at…