HHS issued a new rule Dec. 11 in a bid to make sharing health information easier and more secure. This rule is part of the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA), which aims to create a unified way for healthcare organizations to share electronic health information while keeping it private and secure.
GAO Makes Recommendations to VHA to Improve Oversight
It has been nearly a decade since the U.S. Government Accountability Office added the Veterans Health Administration to its High-Risk List of programs and operations that are vulnerable to waste, fraud, abuse, or mismanagement, or in need of transformation. The GAO’s recent analysis makes several recommendations for improvement and leaves VHA on the High-Risk List. A GAO report noted that since its high-risk designation, VHA has undergone various organizational changes to the offices responsible for carrying out select oversight functions, with the goal of eliminating fragmentation, overlap, and duplication across oversight offices.
Lawmakers reached a deal Saturday evening to extend expiring healthcare programs, lobbyists close to the issue said. The package, floated Friday, is more robust than lobbyists expected. The extensions in the package won't be final until the House and Senate vote on the package this week. The healthcare package includes a 2.5% payment boost for Medicare physicians for one year. The bump would counteract the 2.8% pay cut finalized in the Medicare physician fee schedule in November.
Researchers found that ACOs with more than 50 percent of physicians engaged in primary care consistently outperformed those with less than a majority of primary care physicians. MSSP ACOs in the highest quintiles of primary care centricity were consistently more likely to generate savings, as compared to ACOs with a lower measure of primary care centricity, the report noted. Additionally, the research concluded that primary care-centric ACOs were more likely to reduce costs and earn back savings through MSSP, resulting in 2.4 times as many savings as other ACOs over a six-year period.
At Becker's Fall Payer Issues Roundtable, industry leaders explored how AI can transform managed care organizations by promoting health equity and enhancing patient outcomes. The panel focused on actionable steps for AI adoption, such as establishing governance frameworks, fostering cross-functional dialogue, and concentrating on actionable insights to improve healthcare accessibility.
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