Medicare & Medicaid
News articles in this section include actions by federal regulators like the CMS and HHS, as well as information on Medicare and state Medicaid coverage and benefits.
The Biden administration finalized a 4.3% bump for inpatient payments for the federal fiscal year 2023, an increase compared to the 3.2% that was originally proposed back in April. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released on Monday the final Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) and Long-Term Care Hospital Prospective Payment System rule that ...
The feds expect Medicare Part D premiums to decline by nearly 2% next year. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) said Friday that it expects the average premium to decrease to $31.50 in 2023, or about 1.8% from the 2022 rate of $32.08. The projected monthly premiums are based on bids to CMS ...
Manchin has told Senate leadership that he will support the extension as part of a narrow spending bill aimed at lowering drug prices, according to a report in Politico. The development comes as the healthcare industry has been imploring Congress to extend the enhanced subsidies that will expire after this year.
A new study found that more Medicare Part D beneficiaries paid the entire generic drug cost at least once in 2020 compared to 2017.
Several provider groups are slamming recent payment rules offering small price hikes for 2023, as COVID-19 relief in place for more than two years erodes. Groups are clamoring for regulators to boost payments in the proposed 2023 Physician Fee Schedule and Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) rules. Providers say that added pressures of labor shortages, inflation and renewed surges ...
Senate Democrats want to boost taxes on some high earners and use the money to extend the solvency of Medicare, the latest step in the party’s election-year attempt to craft a scaled-back version of the economic package that collapsed last year
To dodge hefty costs for eyewear, California’s health insurance program for low-income people, Medi-Cal, has an innovative strategy: It contracts exclusively with the state’s prisons, and inmates make glasses for its beneficiaries. But the partnership that began more than 30 years ago has fractured. Medi-Cal enrollees, many of whom are children, and their eye care ...
While COVID-19 job losses may have led to uninsurance for some Americans, it doesn’t appear that children’s insurance rates were negatively impacted. In fact, new research suggests that children’s uninsurance rates actually fell between 2019 and 2021. The report, published by Urban Institute this week, looks at survey data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and ...
Democratic senators on Wednesday took a formal step toward reviving President Joe Biden’s economic agenda, starting with a measure to let Medicare negotiate prices with drugmakers and to curb rising drug costs more broadly. A similar proposal died in December when Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) decided to oppose Biden’s $1.9 trillion Build Back Better bill, ...
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is responding to the chaos of the covid-19 pandemic by proposing to hide from the public a rating that lets consumers compare hospitals’ safety records and to waive approximately $350 million in financial penalties for roughly 750 hospitals with the worst patient-safety track records. CMS’ chief medical officer, Dr. Lee Fleisher, said those ...