According to the new annual report published by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' Office of the Actuary, the U.S. healthcare spending growth had decreased from 2016 to 2017. Factors that had caused the decline in healthcare spending was the reduced use of hospital care, physician services and prescription drugs. In 2017, the annual [...]
In a report to Congress, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) stated that telehealth has the potential to provide valuable care without an increase in cost. Although promising, telehealth has yet to be adopted across Medicare beneficiaries. Within 2014 to 2016, less than one percent of all Medicare beneficiaries, which is estimated to [...]
In the first two weeks of early enrollment for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a total of 1,176,232 people enrolled in a health plan for the 2019 fiscal year. Of those enrollees, 901,300 renewed their existing coverage in the marketplace, while a total count of 274,913 people were new consumers. The count of people who [...]
On Monday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released a guidance that gave states more power to overhaul their own individual insurance markets through the 1332 waiver. The waiver is meant to stimulate enrollment and allow states to offer more cost-effective but lean association and short term insurance plans. Through the Affordable Care Act, [...]
According to GOP leaders, House and Senate Republicans stated that they want to retry their efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act in 2019. Despite their efforts to repeal and replace the current healthcare legislation, they were faced with much backlash and could not push forward with a significant plan. Analysts doubt that [...]
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid services (CMS) unveiled a new initiative to enhance the user experience for Medicare beneficiaries. The eMedicare initiative aims to give users a more personalized online health care experience, empowering patients with updated Medicare resources. Through a multi-year strategy, the CMS' eMedicare initiative will use consumer data integration and web [...]
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services issued a funding agreement under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 to progress the current quality measures for the Quality Payment Program under Medicare. The agency has announced it will give $26.6 million to the chosen healthcare organizations for assisting in the development of the [...]
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor stated his uncertainty on the validity of the individual mandate without holding a tax penalty for the mandate. In the 2017 tax overhaul, Congress had revoked the tax penalty, which penalized individuals who did not have health insurance. Judge O'Connor questioned whether the overhaul of the tax penalty [...]
Just after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services proposed overhauling Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), the CMS shared on Thursday that Medicare ACOs had made $1.1 billion from 2017 in savings. Of that $1.1 billion in savings, the CMS allocated $780 million with the Medicare ACOs, leaving the CMS with $313.7 million. The CMS recently [...]
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report on August 23, 2018 regarding the effect the Trump Administration has had on open enrollment via healthcare.gov for 2018. The Trump administration has made many actions that have affected the outcomes of the 2018 enrollment period, including reducing the time frame from 90 days to 45 days [...]