Medicare Payments Cut for Low-Quality Hospitals

In the past, Medicare basically paid hospitals the same amount for every type of admission regardless of quality.  Of course, Medicare did adjust payments to hospitals based on the their cost of labor (hospital wage index adjustment), share of low-income patients (disproportionate share hospital payment), and number of medical school residents (indirect medical education payment),…

Chronic Care Management: Does it work?

According to one recent study, the answer is ‘yes’. “…mortality is reduced by chronic care management, irrespective of the differences between the studies included. Furthermore, the meta-regression analysis revealed that all-cause hospitalization and the quality of life could significantly be improved by chronic care management. The study quality, the length of follow-up, and the number…