Clinical Integration

Last week, we released a report as part of the AHA’s on-going campaign seeking regulatory relief for hospitals and health systems. It highlights how outdated fraud and abuse regulations created under the Stark and Anti-Kickback laws are barriers to transforming patient care.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on July 7 released the physician fee schedule (PFS) proposed rule for calendar year (CY) 2017. In addition to standard updates to the PFS payment rates and policies, the rule also includes proposed changes related to Medicare Advantage (MA) and…
A new report released today examines some of the most detrimental legal barriers that hospitals and physicians face whenever they try to work together to transform the delivery of patient care. Unquestionably, these barriers impede the hospital field’s efforts to move from a payment system based on…
Legal (Fraud and Abuse) Barriers to Care Transformation and How to Address Them tackles seven major barriers created by the Stark and Anti-Kickback Laws and/or regulations that impact hospitals and impede their efforts to coordinate care every day.
The AHA today shared with Congress and HHS a new report that examines the barriers to transforming health care delivery created by outdated fraud and abuse laws. This report recommends the enactment of comprehensive safe harbors to remove outdated barriers and replace them with measures to foster…
AHA letter to the FTC regarding clinical integration
The following post is written by Herb B. Kuhn, President and CEO of the Missouri Hospital Association and Jane Drummond, General Counsel and Vice President of Legal Affairs of the Missouri Hospital Association.This week, Missouri’s Department of Insurance announced it would block the merged Aetna…
A new paper by two respected economists “throws cold water” on an untested theory that claims competition falls and prices rise when hospitals in distant geographies combine, writes Melinda Reid Hatton, AHA general counsel and senior vice president, in an AHASTAT blog post.
A new paper throws cold water on an untested theory about the impact hospital realignment has on competition when the combining hospitals are far apart. The paper points out at least half a dozen possible flaws in the new theory ranging from fuzzy geographic markets to the lack of credit the…