Affordable Care Act Archive
How Post-Hospitalists Decrease Health Care Spending
The benefits of post-hospitalists cannot be overstated. These specialized physicians have proven to enhance the quality of care, make facilities compliant with ever-changing regulations and decrease health care spending. How does one type of skilled physician decrease health care spending? Being dedicated to post-acute and long-term care facilities Many physicians divide their time between hospitals,Read the Rest…
What IMPACT Has Done for Nursing Home Five-Star Rating System
The Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation Act (IMPACT) was signed into law by President Obama on October 6, 2014. The IMPACT was created to improve the quality of care for home health care, nursing home, rehabilitation and long-term acute care hospital patients. These improvements are to be made using more efficient and accurate data collectionRead the Rest…
4.3 percent of Medicaid beneficiaries receive a third of all benefits
In 2012, Medicaid spent $435.5 billion on 72.6 million providing healthcare coverage to its beneficiaries. Since then, the Affordable Care Act has prompted many states to expand Medicaid services to even more people. A February 2014 report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) used data from the most recent fiscal year, 2009, available to determineRead the Rest…
Affordable Care Act Puts Post-Acute Care Facilities under Increasing Scrutiny
Improved healthcare for patients and substantial Medicare savings are the motivations behind the Affordable Care Act’s call for increasing scrutiny of post-acute care facilities; long-term care facility owners and operators need to take notice. Revised nursing home rating systems President Obama signed the Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation Act (IMPACT) Oct. 6 changing the wayRead the Rest…
Defining Long-Term Patient-Centered Care
Patient-centered care considers the individual patient’s needs, preferences and values when making healthcare decisions. This patient-focused approach may seem like common sense, but the truth is, that it is relatively new to the long-term care industry. The term patient-centered care, was first coined in 1991 following a survey that asked recently hospitalized patients what partRead the Rest…
Medicare Tracks ACOs Quality of Care
ACOs, networks of doctors and hospitals tasked with improving patient care while saving Medicare money, reported mixed rates of success in a February 2014 report that offered the first look at their effectiveness. Voluntary creation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) is the most prominent way the Affordable Care Act attempts to provide higher-quality care toRead the Rest…
6 Tips to Creating an Improvement Plan for Nursing Centers
It is still unclear when the new QAPI rules under the Affordable Care Act will be adopted, but it’s not too early to begin developing a plan for improvements at your post hospital care facility. The rule, which is in the “Proposed Rule Stage” in the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, is meant “toRead the Rest…
Affordable Care Act and Doctors Q and A
When the topic turns to the Affordable Care Act and doctors, a pair of issues always seem to come up and raise concerns about Obamacare’s effect on doctors and their practices. The last time we took a look at some of the questions relating to the ACA and how it impacts patients, this time we’reRead the Rest…
Affordable Care Act Q & As
It’s still too soon after implementation to have many questions raised by the Affordable Care Act answered definitively, and of course, debates in courts across the nation will likely change things. But, some of the details about how it’s impacting quality patient care are beginning to come into focus even as they raise more questions.Read the Rest…
7 Jobs Created By the Affordable Care Act
It remains to be seen whether the Affordable Care Act will ultimately increase or decrease jobs overall, but for some job categories there is no question – and the news is good. Although these new jobs are created in direct response to the increased number of Americans with health insurance, most of them aren’t inRead the Rest…