The U.S. Senate yesterday, by a 78-19 vote, passed the $10 billion Temporary Extension Act of 2010, which includes a provision that delays a 21.2 percent Medicare payment reduction to physicians until the end of March. The House of Representatives passed the legislation last week.
The proposed Medicaid expansion is characterized as the largest public administration challenge that states have ever faced, but with adequate support from government and private philanthropies, the program has the potential to become a national leader in effective, high-quality care over the next five years, according to a recent article in Health Affairs.
The American Hospital Association (AHA) has sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., urging that Congress maintain the level of insurance coverage offered in the House version of healthcare reform when it reconciles the competing Senate and House healthcare reform bills.
Healthcare legislation expected to reach the Senate floor this weekend is projected to cost $848 billion and reduce the federal budget deficit by $130 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
Democrats from the U.S. House of Representatives on Oct. 30 unveiled a revised healthcare reform proposal—H.R. 3692, the Affordable Health Care for America Act—which the Congressional Budget Office estimated carries an $894 billion price tag for the federal government.
Ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, has sent a letter to 10 health IT companies requesting consumer complaint information about their health IT products.
The Senate Finance Committee voted today in favor of its version of proposed healthcare reform legislation in a 14-9 vote, including the approval of Olympia Snowe, R.-Me.
The Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee Wednesday passed the Affordable Health Choices Act (AHCA), a bill designed to provide affordable healthcare in the United States. The bipartisan bill includes more than 160 Republican amendments accepted during the month-long mark up.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) could receive $3.31 billion to spend on IT in 2010, an increase of 30 percent over the agency's 2009 budget, under a bill approved Monday by the Senate Appropriations Committee.
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, led by Chairman Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., introduced legislation this week advocating for more government involvement in healthcare coverage. The bill is certain to launch a drawn-out debate over the current delivery direction of healthcare in the United States when it is introduced on the Senate floor in July.
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Former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius won Senate confirmation late Tuesday to serve as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Both houses of Congress have reached a compromise in support of President Barack Obama's Economic Reinvestment and Recovery Act that, among other initiatives totaling $787 billion, is expected to have a net impact of $19 billion for healthcare on the federal budget over the next 10 years.
The U.S. Senate Tuesday passed its version of President Barack Obama's stimulus package, setting the stage for lawmakers to iron out the details and resolve the differences in two congressional bill's healthcare IT provisions.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released a report approximating the costs of the current updated economic stimulus package currently being debated in the Senate, as well as estimating its assistance to the U.S. healthcare system.
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The use of health IT to reduce rehospitalizations will be welcome but also disruptive, said Stephen Jencks, an independent consultant in healthcare safety during a Feb. 24 webinar on the potential use of health IT to mitigate rehospitalizations, sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
During the Health IT Standards Committee meeting on Feb. 24 in Washington, D.C., the Clinical Operations Workgroup sought to gather comments on proposed recommendations on implementation specifications for content exchange, vocabulary and code set standards for the Interim Final Rule of meaningful use.
The state of Maine currently has the largest operating statewide exchange in the country in relation to population. Although Devore Culver, Executive Director of Maine’s HealthInfoNet, expects that distinction to change in the months ahead, the state’s HIE is entering the final months of its demonstration phase, and is slated to move in to its full statewide implementation in the second half of 2010. Culver, who is former CIO of Eastern Maine Health Care, recently spoke with CMIO about the progress HealthInfoNet has made.
In 2006, the Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH), a branch of the FDA, began examining the number of medical device reports they received. Over the past two years, the number of submitted reports has increased, sparking a demand for the CDRH to make a move to electronic reporting.
A new hospital breaking ground usually isn’t breaking news. But the vision of patient care at one new facility, tentatively named Palomar Medical Center West (PMC West), is currently illegal under California state law.
