News and Articles

Welcome to our News and Articles section. With your help we will be including additional information to this section on a continuous basis.

We hope you will return often to read the latest news and feature articles and at the same time provide us your own input and discussion relating to your needs, issues and interests relating to what you encounter and experience in the healthcare industry.

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Most Recent Topics:

• "Critical Access Hospital - Gold Standard Performance Summary Presentation"
  -- By LarsonAllen, LLP, CPAs, Consultants & Advisors
  
  
• "Employers’ Health Insurance Cost Burden, 1996–2005"
  -- Monthly Labor Review, By Christine Eibner and M. Susan Marquis
  
  
• "Financing Medicare - An Issue Brief"
  -- Provided by The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, Prepared by: Lisa Potetz, Health Policy Alternatives, Inc.
  
  
• "Health Coverage for All Paid for by All"
  -- By Health for Life, Fall 2007, Copyright © 2007 by the American Hospital Association, All Rights Reserved. Health for Life is a framework developed by the American Hospital Association in collaboration with others to improve America’s health and health care by calling for: a focus on wellness, the most efficient affordable care, the highest quality care, the best information and health care coverage for all paid for by all.
  
  
• "How Federal Public Health Dollars Are Spent"
  -- By Trust for America's Health (TFAH) - Preventing Epidemics. Protecting People. TFAH is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to saving lives by protecting the health of every community and working to make disease prevention a national priority.
  
  
• "H.R. 6331 - The Medicare Improvements For Patients and Providers Act: Quality Care For Rural Seniors"
  -- This press release provided by United States Senate Committee On Finance, Max Baucus, Chairman
  
  
• "Report to the Congress: Medicare Payment Policy"
  -- Medicare Payment Advisory Commission’s March 2008 Report to the Congress: Medicare Payment Policy. This report fulfills the Commission’s legislative mandate to evaluate Medicare payment issues and make specific recommendations to the Congress.
  
  
• "Rural Hospital Replacement Facility Study"
  -- Prepared by Stroudwater Associates and Red Capital Group
  
  
  Critical Access Hospitals:
  
• "Critical Access Hospital Update"
  -- As of August 1, 2002, there were 657 certified Critical Access Hospitals(CAHS) and numerous others involved in the Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility Grant Program (Flex Program). Source: Rural Policy Research Institute.
  
  
• "State Medicaid Payment Policies for Critical Access Hospitals"
  -- Although Medicaid revenue represents a comparatively small share of Critical Access Hospitals’ (CAHs) overall business (7.2% of all days, on average), Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility Grant Program (Flex Program) officials continue to report that these revenues are important to rural hospitals and that Medicaid reimbursement policies are a significant factor in deciding whether to convert to CAH status. Source:  Rural Policy Research Institute.
  
  Safety:
  
  
• "HHS to Provide Nursing Home Quality Information to Increase Safety and Quality in Nursing Homes"
  -- This press release appeared in HHS News published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.