To help with these complex decisions about offering coverage to employees, the New Jersey Hospital Association launched a new tool on Monday called RIPE—Reform Insurance Penalty Estimator—to help employers determine if they are at risk for penalties. The tool uses simple spreadsheets to calculate if the employer is at risk for penalty, using employee salaries and benefits, as well as what the penalty would be. The tool also does a calculation for 2014 penalty possibilities, incorporating inflation.
Top executives at New Hampshire's 23 nonprofit hospitals saw their pay increase by an average of 18 percent from 2006 to 2009, putting them in the middle of the pack when compared to their peers in other New England states, according to a report released Monday. The report by the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies was requested by the attorney general's office, which had raised concerns about high CEO pay in 2010 when it rejected a proposed affiliation between the holding company for Catholic Medical Center in Manchester and the parent organization for Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital in Lebanon.
Cerner Corp. and a small Kansas hospital have become embroiled in a dispute over failed attempts to install an electronic medical records system. Girard Medical Center, a critical-access hospital northwest of Pittsburg, Kan., had sued the North Kansas City-based supplier of information technology to hospitals, doctors and others in healthcare. Their quarrel is now in arbitration under an order issued in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan. The hospital said Cerner also failed to deliver the system in time to qualify Girard for federal incentive payments it needed to make the $2.9 million project affordable.
The two top Republicans in Congress vowed on Sunday to push ahead with efforts to repeal President Barack Obama's healthcare law despite the Supreme Court upholding it, but the White House said it is time to stop fighting and start implementing it.The House, controlled by Republicans, has scheduled a vote on July 11 to repeal the law. The Democratic-led Senate, as it has done in the past, is certain to block any repeal legislation.
Some say states and the federal government are facing such complex technical and political realities that some deadlines need to be relaxed, including the Jan. 1, 2014, opening of online marketplaces where individuals and small businesses will be able to shop for coverage. More than $850 million in grants has gone to states to plan their exchanges, with most accepting the money, even states where lawmakers have opposed moving forward with any aspect of the healthcare law. Still, only 14 states and the District of Columbia have passed legislation authorizing the exchanges. And legislation is just one piece. States also must upgrade computer systems, create governing organizations and define what "essential benefits" insurers must include in policies sold on their exchanges.
Initiating collaborative relationships is the key to improved quality, most healthcare leaders say. Teamwork is an emerging focus, with nearly three-quarters (72%) of those surveyed entering collaborative care relationships. At the same time, healthcare leaders are reluctant to engage in shared savings programs as a risk-sharing cost-reduction tactic: 63% say they have no plans for such programs, which are a foundation of the evolving accountable care organization models.