Regulations issued Monday under the Affordable Care Act aim to crack down on hospitals with high readmission rates and records of patients acquiring new conditions after they've been admitted for something else. Implementation of ObamaCare's Hospital Acquired Condition Reduction Program is among several provisions of a final rule updating the Medicare payment schedule for general acute care and long-term care hospitals in fiscal 2015. Under the rule, hospitals with the highest rates of hospital-acquired conditions would see their Medicare inpatient payments cut by one percent.
Heightened concern about the Ebola virus has led to alarms being raised at three hospitals in New York City. But so far, no Ebola cases have turned up. The latest episode involved a man who had recently been to West Africa, and who went to the emergency room at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan late Sunday with a high fever and gastrointestinal problems, the hospital reported on Monday. He is being kept in isolation at the hospital while tests are being done for Ebola, a deadly disease, but also for other illnesses that could have caused his symptoms.
Emergency patients who are admitted to the hospital are at greater risk of dying if another emergency room at a hospital nearby has closed its doors, a new study of California hospitals has found. The analysis is believed to be the first to examine the impact that emergency department closures have on the quality of patient care at other hospitals within the same service area. Six percent of the nation's emergency rooms have closed their doors in recent years, including many that serve poor inner-city and rural communities. At the same time, the number of emergency visits throughout the country has increased by 51 percent, a combination of developments that has led to more overcrowding and longer waits for care.
On a recent afternoon at his office in Hartford, Conn., Dr. Doug Gerard examines a patient complaining of joint pain. Gerard, an internist, checks her out, asks her a few questions about her symptoms and then orders a few tests before sending her on her way. For a typical quick visit like this, Gerard could get reimbursed $100 or more from a private insurer. For the same visit, Medicare pays less — about $80. And now, with the new private plans under the Affordable Care Act, Gerard says he would get something in between, but closer to the lower Medicare rates. That's not something he's willing to accept.
Prices on Florida's ObamaCare insurance exchange will rise by an average of 13.2 percent next year, with at least one health plan increasing rates by an average of 23 percent. The changes, published Monday by state regulators, reveal an uptick in prices on the marketplaces but not the dramatic surge predicted by Republicans and some insurance officials. On average, eight plans on the Florida exchange will increase prices 11 percent to 23 percent while three will cut rates by 5 percent to 12 percent.
Health care administrators either direct and coordinate medical services for an entire medical facility or specialize in managing a specific clinical area. The number of available positions in the coming years is projected to expand by an impressive 23 percent, reports the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employee health services managers in Los Angeles, that are able to adapt easily to new health care laws and technology, earn an average annual salary of more than $100,000, according to current employment data.