Category: CMS

Today’s headlines include reports about how the Virginia Assembly’s impasse on Medicaid expansion is playing out. …read more    

“Sheriff Ashe,” [the waitress] began. “My daughter is in your jail.” She then told me her daughter’s story. “Laura,” as I’ll call her here, was a bright and sociable girl who, after graduating from high school, went on to community college. …read more    

Relationships with community organizations that support mental health as well as recovery from addiction are essential to care coordination of Medicare-Medicaid beneficiaries, notes Julie Faulhaber, vice president of enterprise Medicaid at Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC). These collaborations enable HCSC to address the needs of duals as “a whole sick person, and not just as…

The Obama administration wrote a new chapter Wednesday in the “if you like your health plan, you can keep it” chronicles, decreeing that plans it once derided as “junk” or “substandard” can remain in effect until October 2017 — long after the next presidential election. The point, administration officials say, is to help those in…

High-risk security vulnerabilities were discovered in audits of information system general controls at 10 state Medicaid agencies between 2010 and 2012, according to a report published this week by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Office of Inspector General. read more …read more    

After surviving an effort earlier this week to defund it, supporters of the state’s private option are now working on alterations that will smooth its future. Meanwhile, the back-and-forth over whether to pursue the expansion continues in Virginia and Utah. …read more    

Despite calling the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ recent announcement of increased flexibility for hardship exemptions in relation to Meaningful Use Stage 2 “vital relief” for hospital CIOs, College of Healthcare Information Management Executives President and CEO Russell Branzell says that many concerns still remain. read more …read more    

It’s not surprising that less than a month after the first indictment of a former hospital executive for false attestation to Meaningful Use that a House Committee has asked the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Servces and the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Office of Inspector General to justify how well they’re policing…

The expansion is currently being tackled as part of the state’s two-year budget blueprint, but the House GOP is urging that it be considered separately in order to avert a potential government shutdown. …read more    

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT have released two additional draft electronic clinical quality measures (CQMs) for review, download, testing and public comment. read more …read more