| “The telehealth temporary policies helped so many people receive care they otherwise wouldn’t have received or may have put off getting until it became a more serious issue. To suddenly have that access taken away by a policy change could have significant, adverse impacts on many.” | ||
| -Mei Wa Kwong, Executive Director, Center for Connected Health Policy |
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Health Care Organizations'
Capital Expenditure Priorities, 2020 vs 2021
Source: Deloitte via Wall Street Journal, 11/10/21 |
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Forrester: Five Key
Predictions for the Healthcare Industry in the Coming Year 1. Health disparities will negatively impact rural Americans twice as much as urban Americans 2. Labor shortages will double the medication error rate among providers 3. Healthcare will no longer be considered a trusted industry as misinformation and cyberattacks continue 4. Sixty percent of virtual care visits will be related to mental health 5. The number of hospital-at-home providers will triple Source: Healthcare industry will face higher medication errors, declining patient trust in 2022: Forrester |
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The Next Normal: Hospitals and Healthcare BU School of Public
Health
Domestically and globally, healthcare systems
were overwhelmed by the COVID-19 pandemic. What have we learned
from the pandemic about how care is delivered and how our
systems can be improved to better deliver efficient and
high-quality care? This program is a part of “The Next Normal”
series, designed to ask, as we emerge from the pandemic, what we
have learned and why, in order to promote the health of all, we
cannot return to |
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Check out
HealthshareTV, the
home for health care videos |
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How ACA Marketplace Premiums Are Changing by County in
2022 Premiums for ACA Marketplace benchmark silver plans are decreasing on average across the U.S. in 2022 for the fourth consecutive year. However, premium changes vary widely by location and by metal level, with premiums increasing in several cases. As most enrollees receive significant premium subsidies on the ACA Marketplaces, the net premium amount an exchange enrollee pays out-of-pocket depends on their income and the difference in the cost between the benchmark plan (second-lowest silver plan) and the premium for the plan they choose. KFF, December 7, 2021 A Tale of Two Medicaid Expansions: Oklahoma Jumps In, While Missouri Lags Temp worker James Dickerson applied for Medicaid because it will be cheaper than his current health plan. Home health aide Sharon Coleman looks forward to having coverage that will cover a hospital stay. Incoming medical student Danielle Gaddis no longer worries a trip to the doctor will leave her in debt. All three are among the roughly 490,000 people newly eligible for Medicaid after Oklahoma and Missouri voters in 2020 approved expanding the federal-state public health insurance program for people with low incomes. Kaiser Health News, December 3, 2021 How healthcare payers can expand nutrition support for the food insecure Combating food insecurity is a social and economic challenge. That much became clear during the past year, when the COVID-19 pandemic skyrocketed the number of people experiencing food insecurity in the United States. Feeding America estimates that 45 million Americans (one in seven) may have experienced food insecurity in 2020,1 a nearly 30 percent increase from 2019 despite the expansion of social support programs during the pandemic. McKinsey & Company, November 24, 2021 Achieving Racial and Ethnic Equity in U.S. Health Care Profound racial and ethnic disparities in health and well-being have long been the norm in the United States. In this report, we evaluate health equity across race and ethnicity, both within and between states, to illuminate how state health systems perform for Black, white, Latinx/Hispanic, AIAN, and Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) populations. Our hope is that policymakers and health system leaders will use this tool to investigate the impact of past policies on health across racial and ethnic groups, and that they will begin to take steps to ensure an equitable, antiracist health care system for the future. Commonwealth Fund, November 18, 2021 Blue Cross Equity Initiatives Incentivizes Physicians to Close Care Gaps Lagging, missing, and unstructured data is one kind of healthcare challenge. Some data, however, is hiding in plain sight, waiting to make a difference. One payer, BlueCross Blue Shield of Massachusetts (BCBS-MA), is focusing on existing HEDIS data to reveal multiple racial and ethnic disparities and link solutions to its current value-based purchasing (VBP) model. HealthLeaders, November 15, 2021 Health Care CFOs Expand Investment Plans, Strategic Partnering Last year was a challenging time for all businesses and industries, but in particular, it was an unprecedented crisis for health care organizations. Even as they responded resiliently, saving millions of lives, many faced daunting financial, workforce, and supply chain vulnerabilities. Wall Street Journal, November 10, 2021 Avalere Survey: Over Half of Health Plans Use Outcomes-Based Contracts In September 2021, Avalere conducted an online survey of 51 US-based health plans and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), representing roughly 59 million covered lives. The survey indicates that 56% of payers have executed an outcomes-based contract (OBC) as of September 2021. Avalere, November 4, 2021 eHealth Releases Health Insurance Trends: A Comprehensive Bi-Annual Study of the Health Care Industry eHealth, Inc. published a new installment of its biannual Health Insurance Trends report, offering a comprehensive look at the state of the market in a period of transformation and new possibilities. The report presents findings of interest to consumers, elected representatives and policymakers, insurance industry leaders, and market analysts. eHealth, November 4, 2021 |
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National Health Spending in 2020 Increases due to Impact
of COVID-19 As with so many aspects of American life, the COVID-19 pandemic had a dramatic impact on the nation’s health sector in 2020, driving a 9.7% growth in total national healthcare spending, bringing spending to $4.1 trillion. This statistic is one of many health care expenditures presented in the 2020 National Health Expenditures (NHE) Report, prepared by the Office of the Actuary at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). CMS, December 15, 2021 CVS Health maps out path to steer into primary care delivery CVS Health is launching a plan to use telemedicine, new clinics and teams of doctors, nurses and pharmacists to push deeper into managing customer health. The health care giant on Thursday outlined a future that it expects to be defined by delivering care with what it calls a unique mix of resources. The company runs thousands of drugstores, manages prescription benefits and also sells health insurance, in addition to its care expansion. AP via ABCNews, December 9, 2021 Suit by Doctors, Hospitals Seeks Change in How Arbitrators Settle Surprise Billing Cases Two of the largest lobbying groups representing physicians and hospitals filed a lawsuit Thursday challenging a Biden administration decision on how to implement the law shielding patients from most surprise medical bills. The lawsuit from the American Hospital Association and the American Medical Association does not seek to halt the law from going into effect in January. Instead, it seeks a change in a key provision in regulations issued in September. Kaiser Health News, December 9, 2021 ACA exchanges seeing record interest in heavily subsidized 2022 coverage Americans are flocking to the Affordable Care Act exchanges to sign up for coverage for 2022. The interest, which comes after a record number of people enrolled in 2021 Obamacare policies, is being spurred by the generous subsidies enacted earlier this year as part of the American Rescue Plan, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Thursday. CNN, December 9, 2021 CVS Health Contributes $9.2M to Address SDOH, Homelessness in DC CVS Health is investing $9.2 million in affordable housing for Washington DC residents to help address social determinants of health and racial care disparities, including housing insecurity and homelessness. The project is the result of a collaboration between the payer, the NHP Foundation—a not-for-profit organization committed to preserving and creating sustainable, affordable housing for low-income families—and Legacy Real Estate Development. Health Payer Intelligence, December 2, 2021 Telehealth May Be Here to Stay Before the COVID-19 pandemic, medical executive Lyndi Church and her colleagues at Caring Hands Healthcare Centers in southeastern Oklahoma had been intrigued by telehealth, but they feared it was unworkable in their rural corner of the state. Many residents of the area lacked reliable broadband or didn’t have the devices or technological savvy to use telehealth services. Church, the chief operations officer of Caring Hands, anticipated significant resistance. “We weren’t sure how our patients would take to it,” she said. Then the pandemic hit, and everything changed. PEW, December 1, 2021 Trends in 2021 Affordable Care Act Marketplace Insurers, Locations The number of insurance options in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace has increased since 2018 with nearly 1,500 counties having access to three or more marketplace payers, a Health Affairs report found. Health Payer Intelligence, November 29, 2021 Majority of Medicaid managed care plans offered health equity benefits in 2020 Seven in 10 health plans said in a recent survey that they offered a plan that aimed to address health inequities over the past year as the pandemic caused plans to stretch resources. The survey, released by the Institute for Medicaid Innovation, also showed a decline in plans using value-based purchasing systems and noted communication challenges were a major barrier to care. Fierce Healthcare, November 23, 2021 Surprise medical bills average $750 to $2,600, new federal report says Millions of Americans with private health insurance experience some kind of surprise medical billing, according to a new government report released less than six weeks before the No Surprises Act goes into effect. Healthcare Finance, November 23, 2021 |
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