The number of rating downgrades for non-profit hospitals outpaced upgrades in the first quarter of 2012, Moody's Investors Service said on Monday, adding it remains cautious about the effects of a slow economic recovery, federal deficit cutting measures and state budget pressures on the sector. The ratio of downgrades to upgrades was 1.33 to 1, Moody's said. "The increased proportion of downgrades is driven by the continued slow economic recovery, increasing pressure on state budgets, and a large and growing federal deficit that may lead to reductions in Medicare and Medicaid which translate into weak volumes and revenue declines," Moody's said in a statement, noting that it is maintaining its long-standing negative outlook on the sector.
Health and Human Services Commission's Office of Inspector General's dollar-recovery strategy—which includes an increased reliance on a rule that allows investigators to freeze financing for any health provider accused of overbilling—has enraged doctors, dentists and other providers who treat Medicaid patients. They say an anonymous call to a fraud hotline or a computer-generated analysis of a handful of billing codes is enough to halt their financing without so much as a hearing, jeopardizing their practices and employees and leaving thousands of needy patients in a lurch while the state works to prove—or rule out—abuse.
McLean-based Science Applications International Corp. plans to add more than 1,300 employees to its health business with its planned acquisition of Westfield, Ind.-based MaxIT Healthcare Holdings, announced last week. The deal marks the latest contractor move into health information technology and follows the Supreme Court's recent decision allowing President Obama's healthcare law to move forward. Contractors are aggressively buying up health IT businesses in hopes of positioning themselves to win work modernizing health systems and records at the state and federal level and at commercial healthcare providers.
The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) announced Monday the start of a public comment period for its landmark draft Methodology Report, which proposes standards for the conduct of patient-centered outcomes research Feedback received during the 54-day comment period, which ends at 11:59 p.m. ET Friday, September 14, will be analyzed for potential incorporation into a revised version of the report that is to be considered for adoption by the PCORI Board of Governors at its November 2012 public meeting in Boston.
Implementation of electronic health records (EHRs), compliance with government regulations, and other healthcare IT initiatives are driving up demand for health IT pros these days. But while their pay inched up last year, health IT professionals' compensation still, for the most part, lags behind IT pros across all industries, according to the InformationWeek 2012 IT Salary Survey. However, while health IT managers earned smaller paychecks than IT managers across other industries, healthcare CIOs fared better than CIOs in general. Healthcare IT staffers also did better than healthcare IT managers, whose increases in base pay and total compensation in 2012 over 2011 were slightly smaller than those seen from 2010 to 2011.
Trillium Community Health Plan, which is owned by a group of 300 doctors, has stepped up to partner with Lane County in establishing a new way to provide healthcare to people covered by the Oregon Health Plan—Oregon’s version of Medicaid. Trillium is spearheading the new coordinated care organization, or CCO, in Lane County. Trillium and Lane County made a high-stakes bet when they pooled their know-how and financial reserves to create the CCO. Lane County is putting up $5 million and Trillium is putting up $15 million in reserve funds that could be tapped if the new CCO's budget of $270 million doesn't stretch far enough next year to pay the medical bills for the 55,000 Oregon Health Plan members in Lane County.