"Health & Medical News"

Washington — A bipartisan bill to delay Medicaid rules that would cut billions in federal funding for hospitals and physician training has attracted support in the House.

A House Energy and Commerce subcommittee approved the legislation unanimously on April 9. The measure would prevent until April 1, 2009, the implementation of seven Medicaid rules introduced since 2007 by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. One of the regulations would eliminate on May 25 Medicaid funding for graduate medical education — an estimated $1.78 billion over five years.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: unranked [?]

Washington — Most physicians are prepared to meet the April 1 federal deadline for writing many Medicaid prescriptions on tamper-resistant pads, according to medical, pharmacist and other organizations. But these groups continue to reach out to doctors who may be unaware of, or confused about, the law.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: unranked [?]

Washington — Medicaid recipients in Tallahassee and surrounding Leon County are the test subjects for a bold Florida experiment: a pilot program giving them their own electronic health records.

The initiative, administered by Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration, runs from November to February 2008 and seeks to create EHRs for each of the 25,000 Medicaid recipients in Leon County, said Peter Finney, program manager of the Electronic Health Records Center of Excellence for Electronic Data Systems, a Plano, Texas, information technology corporation.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: unranked [?]

Washington — Medicare and Medicaid spending would — if unaddressed — continue to grow faster than the economy over the next 75 years, but don’t blame it all on the baby boomers. Instead, look at the way physicians and hospitals are paid and how technology and new treatments drive costs, according to a first-ever Congressional Budget Office analysis of long-term health spending.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: unranked [?]

States that allow managed-care programs to limit prescriptions and access to pharmacy networks are hindering the use of naltrexone for treating alcohol addiction, according to research from the Substance Abuse Policy Research Program (SAPRP).

Researchers Carolyn Heinrich of the University of Wisconsin at Madison and Carolyn Hill of Georgetown University found that treatment providers were more likely to prescribe naltrexone in states where use of generic drugs is encouraged in Medicaid programs. In states where managed-care firms dictate prescription rules, however, naltrexone was less likely to be prescribed. Other barriers to naltrexone use were restricting use of Medicaid funds for addiction treatment and the use of restrictive preferred-drug lists for Medicaid patients.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Washington — Six proposed administrative changes to federal Medicaid funding are overdue steps to halt inappropriate federal spending, according to one side of a developing debate. They’re unwarranted cuts to much-needed care, the other side argues.

The Medicaid rules, issued by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, would reduce federal Medicaid spending by at least $11 billion (0.9%) over five years. They are CMS’ attempt to ensure that it’s paying for medically necessary services and that those services have a legally defined federal matching fund requirement, said Dennis Smith, director of the agency’s Center for Medicaid and State Operations.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: unranked [?]

Washington — Thirty-three states plan to increase their Medicaid payment rates for doctors in 2008. Many also are poised to expand eligibility and to use the program to cover more of the uninsured.

Next year will mark the third consecutive year during which at least two dozen states raised Medicaid physician reimbursements, according to an annual 50-state survey of Medicaid directors. It was released in October by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Management Associates, a health research and consulting firm.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: unranked [?]