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February 6, 2020

Trump Faces Struggle to Defend Hospital Outpatient Pay Cuts – Bloomberg Law, Feb. 6, 2020

The Trump administration will have a tough time defending its effort to ensure that Medicare pays the same rates for services provided at hospital outpatient clinics as at doctors’ offices. The American Hospital Association and dozens of hospitals around the country are challenging the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid’s decision to lower payments to off-campus […]

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April 5, 2019

Shifting Care from Office to Outpatient Settings: Services are Increasingly Performed in Outpatient Settings with Higher Prices – Health Care Cost Initiative, April 2, 2019

Where people receive health care matters, especially in terms of costs. The same services may have a much higher price tag when performed in one setting rather than another, but this price difference is rarely publicized to patients. To understand what settings people used and how prices differed, we looked at the utilization and average […]

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March 26, 2019

Not All Medicare Cuts Are Bad – The New York Times, March 26, 2019

Democrats are engaged in indiscriminate attacks on President Trump’s 2020 budget proposal. They are ignoring some worthy ideas. Senate Democrats, including several of the party’s presidential candidates, have savaged President Trump for proposing to reduce Medicare spending by several hundred billion dollars over the next decade. Senator Kamala Harris of California said the proposed changes […]

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March 15, 2019

Countering Provider Consolidation – Life Science Leader, March 15, 2019

As Congress debates partisan issues such as “Medicare for All” where private health insurance would be outlawed, troubling trends are emerging on healthcare provider consolidation that are driving up costs. ACOs’ Underwhelming Performance There is a long-standing belief — particularly in liberal and academic health-policy circles — that physician–hospital integration into larger systems would improve […]

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February 27, 2019

More Outpatient Site-Neutral Payments to Cut Costs, Coalition Says – RevCycle Intelligence, Feb. 26, 2019

Extending and establishing site-neutral payments for outpatient services is the key to lowering healthcare costs, a coalition of patient advocates, providers, payers, and employers recently told top policymakers. “Site neutral payment reforms have long had bipartisan support from policymakers, healthcare economists, regulators and MedPAC,” the Alliance for Site Neutral Payment Reform wrote in a Feb. 20 letter. […]

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October 26, 2018

Site neutral payment reform is a winning issue for patients – unless Congress rolls it back – The Hill, Oct. 26, 2018

Data show that the majority of Americans experience stress tied to medical costs for treating illnesses or purchasing medications. Premiums for most health insurance plans continue to increase as more patients find themselves paying more out-of-pocket in the form of higher co-pays and deductibles. Cancer patients face particular hardship. A recent survey found that 70 […]

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October 25, 2018

Congress Must Resist Hospitals’ Efforts Against Site-Neutral Payments – Real Clear Health, Oct. 25, 2018

By Deepak Kapoor |   October 25, 2018 Recent efforts by the nation’s hospital industry illustrate the difficulty of controlling expenditures in the nation’s $700 billion Medicare program. Congress included in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 (BBA), a clear, bipartisan message that, to the extent similar services can be safely provided in multiple settings, […]

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August 14, 2018

AAOS supports move to site-neutral payments for physician office visits – Becker’s Spine Review, Aug. 14, 2018

By Laura Dyrda  |   August 14, 2018 The American Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons supports CMS’ Outpatient Prospective Payment System and Ambulatory Surgical Center Payment System’s proposed rule to move the two sites of service closer to site-neutral payments. The new rule would reduce the payment rate for hospital outpatient clinic visits provided at off-campus […]

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