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The U.S. Senate has passed legislation to expand the number of eligible physicians who might receive incentive payments for the meaningful use of health IT under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009.
The proposed Medicaid expansion is characterized as the largest public administration challenge that states have ever faced, but with adequate support from government and private philanthropies, the program has the potential to become a national leader in effective, high-quality care over the next five years, according to a recent article in Health Affairs.
The American Hospital Association (AHA) has sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., urging that Congress maintain the level of insurance coverage offered in the House version of healthcare reform when it reconciles the competing Senate and House healthcare reform bills.
A hearing is set to be held in regard to the recent U.S. Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF) revised recommendations concerning mammography screening for women, led by Chairman Tom Harkin, D-IA, of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Friday announced final changes for policy and payment rates during the 2010 calendar year, which, if implemented, could cut by up to 38 percent the amount doctors will receive when they use medical imaging equipment for procedures such as MRI and CT scans. The rule affects more than one million physicians and non-physician practitioners who are paid under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule.
Democrats from the U.S. House of Representatives on Oct. 30 unveiled a revised healthcare reform proposal—H.R. 3692, the Affordable Health Care for America Act—which the Congressional Budget Office estimated carries an $894 billion price tag for the federal government.
The Senate Finance Committee voted today in favor of its version of proposed healthcare reform legislation in a 14-9 vote, including the approval of Olympia Snowe, R.-Me.
The Texas Heart Attack Prevention Bill, signed into law by Texas Governor Rick Perry in late June, is set to take effect on Sept. 1, and will require insurance companies to pay for heart attack preventive imaging screening tests.
The healthcare reform bill approved last week by the House Energy and Commerce Committee contained an amendment prohibiting the federal government from using comparative-effectiveness research to “deny or ration care.”
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) could receive $3.31 billion to spend on IT in 2010, an increase of 30 percent over the agency's 2009 budget, under a bill approved Monday by the Senate Appropriations Committee.
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The U.S. Senate yesterday, by a 78-19 vote, passed the $10 billion Temporary Extension Act of 2010, which includes a provision that delays a 21.2 percent Medicare payment reduction to physicians until the end of March. The House of Representatives passed the legislation last week.
Legislation introduced by Rep. Charlie Gonzalez, D-Texas, to hold cardiology practice expense values at the 2009 rates, while allowing other specialty practices to operate at 2010 physician practice information survey values, has garnered 82 co-sponsors in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Written by Justine Cadet
CHICAGO—The recent recommendations by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force limiting breast cancer screening for women in various age groups, as well as the frequency of those exams, ignited a flurry of criticism by a panel of breast imaging experts, hosted by the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) on Wednesday morning at their annual scientific sessions.
Healthcare legislation expected to reach the Senate floor this weekend is projected to cost $848 billion and reduce the federal budget deficit by $130 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
With the exception of evaluation and management services, nearly all services that cardiologists perform will see cuts ranging from 10 percent to more than 40 percent for individual services phased in over four years, according to the just-released Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) 2010 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule final rule. The cuts will be phased in over a four-year period, which is a slight change from the proposed rule.
Ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, has sent a letter to 10 health IT companies requesting consumer complaint information about their health IT products.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation have released a preliminary analysis of the Senate healthcare reform legislation, Chairman’s Mark for the America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009, estimating the bill would reduce federal budget deficits by $81 billion over the 2010–2019 period.
The American College of Radiology (ACR) is continuing to lobby for changes in several provisions in both the House and Senate versions of healthcare reform.
The Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee Wednesday passed the Affordable Health Choices Act (AHCA), a bill designed to provide affordable healthcare in the United States. The bipartisan bill includes more than 160 Republican amendments accepted during the month-long mark up.
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, led by Chairman Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., introduced legislation this week advocating for more government involvement in healthcare coverage. The bill is certain to launch a drawn-out debate over the current delivery direction of healthcare in the United States when it is introduced on the Senate floor in July.
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The use of health IT to reduce rehospitalizations will be welcome but also disruptive, said Stephen Jencks, an independent consultant in healthcare safety during a Feb. 24 webinar on the potential use of health IT to mitigate rehospitalizations, sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
During the Health IT Standards Committee meeting on Feb. 24 in Washington, D.C., the Clinical Operations Workgroup sought to gather comments on proposed recommendations on implementation specifications for content exchange, vocabulary and code set standards for the Interim Final Rule of meaningful use.
In 2006, the Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH), a branch of the FDA, began examining the number of medical device reports they received. Over the past two years, the number of submitted reports has increased, sparking a demand for the CDRH to make a move to electronic reporting.
A new hospital breaking ground usually isn’t breaking news. But the vision of patient care at one new facility, tentatively named Palomar Medical Center West (PMC West), is currently illegal under California state law.