Practice Management
The Zika virus has not had a significant impact on the health of the US population; however, worried patients may still be turning to urgent care providers if they have suspicious symptoms after traveling in affected areas in Latin America and the Caribbean. Still others may have questions about what precautions to take if they have a trip planned. Operators would be wise to be armed with reassuring answers, and to know what to do …
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Those who herald the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or “Obamacare”) as a success continue to be vexed by the six million or so citizens who are eligible for Medicaid but simply don’t sign up for it. Perhaps that should not be surprising, however, given that most people eligible for Medicaid are exempt from having to pay a penalty for being uninsured—one of the ACA’s prime incentives for individuals to get insured—and those eligible can sign …
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Healthcare corporations continue to deepen their urgent care portfolios through acquisition—and they’re seeing dividends while also planning to continue buying up properties. HCA Holdings welcomed more than a million patients into its ever-expanding urgent care units within the last year—an increase of 500%, according to the company. Having made a number of acquisitions in the urgent care marketplace, as we’ve told you, HCA now has 66 centers in the U.S. The hospital giant has reported …
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The best indicator of whether a physician is likely to have a malpractice claim made against him—yes, they are disproportionately male—appears to be whether a previous claim has ever been made. In fact, researchers at Stanford report that 1% of doctors are linked to nearly 33% of all paid General surgeons are among the doctors most likely to be the subjects of paid malpractice claims. Further, that group appears to share some distinct characteristics. In …
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Urgent care practices that focus on helping patients stay up to date on immunization—such as occupational medicine and travel medicine providers, or those that cater to seniors and families with children—take note: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has made a few changes in its recommendations this year. For adults, a recently licensed meningococcal serogroup B vaccine and human papillomavirus vaccine have been added, and the recommendation for pneumococcal vaccination has been revised from …
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A settlement with a billing company in Massachusetts is just the latest outcome of federal prosecutors going after healthcare companies for return of Medicare bonuses claimed in error. It’s a reminder that filing for claims improperly—even if inadvertently—can have serious consequences for operators. In this case, Medical Reimbursement Systems Inc. has agreed to pay $500,000 to settle allegations that it submitted false claims to the military’s Tricare program on behalf of a medical practice in …
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UnitedHealth’s OptumCare division already runs over 160 urgent care centers in 14 states by virtue of having bought MedExpress, but it plans to have “several multiples of that number five years from now.” That’s what Optum CEO and UnitedHealth Group vice chair Larry Renfro told a group of analysts recently, citing provider revenues as a key growth factor for the company. Already the largest payer in the U.S., UnitedHealth joins HCA Holdings and Tenet Healthcare …
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Even as private citizens continue to pay a greater percentage of their paychecks for healthcare, new data say that the government is picking up the biggest portion of healthcare spending overall—64.3% as of 2013. Of particular note, Medicare spending rose about 2.5% between 1999 and 2013. The data, which are published online in the American Journal of Public Health, reflect direct government payments for Medicare, Medicaid, and other public programs (eg, the Veterans Health Administration, …
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The Florida legislature’s House Insurance & Banking Subcommittee has put its stamp of approval on a proposal to protect patients from surprise charges after discharge from the emergency room. As written, the bill would make insurers pay for emergency services and include an arbitration process to resolve differences between insurers and healthcare providers; patients themselves would be removed from that process. Several states have already enacted similar legislation, with still more—including Florida—moving toward doing the …
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The Center for American Progress (CAP), a Washington, DC-based think tank, says senior citizens will be forced to pay higher Medicare Advantage premiums if Aetna’s proposed acquisition of Humana goes through. Aetna currently holds 7% of that market and Humana 19%. While their combined share of the entire current Medicare market would still be just 8%, Anthem has also moved to buy Cigna Corp. The combined effect of such deals could cut competition and result …
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