Health Care Reform
“Are you concerned about Medicare reform, and how it will affect your business?”
As health care business owners, we have often faced this question. To us, history speaks louder than the health care reform packages laid out to us by the Republican and Democratic candidates this political season.
The Balanced Budget Act, enacted in 1997, put forth the foundations of HOPPS; and in doing so set in motion the requirement of hospitals to concede to more concise coding and charging methodologies. Administration of HOPPS was effective on August 1, 2000, three years after enactment.
Result?
Many hospitals were relatively unprepared to deal with the new regulation, and some still struggle with the administrative refinement to keep up.
Another example is the electronic health record. While there is much industry focus on the efficiency of the electronic health record, most organizations are still challenged to adopt a fully-integrated medical record. Whether related to cost, scalability, or other reasons, many organizations still operate using paper-based methodologies.
In an article published in Newsweek (http://www.newsweek.com/id/156349) recently titled “Is Medicare Healthy,” provided another explanation:
People have been calling for serious Medicare reform for decades. It hasn’t happened. Is there reason to think the next four years will be any different?
The author’s response:
Not really. The historical record suggests that if it looks possible to make some modest changes and put the big ones off to another Congress, that’s what Washington will do. But at some point, of course, that will no longer be possible.
Our Take on It
Regardless of the contributing factor, things have moved slowly in healthcare. Are we concerned about Medicare reform? Sure. We think that in some ways, we all need to be concerned about Medicare reform; but our experience tells us that change doesn’t happen fast.
It is our belief that it is essential for providers to focus on the now: on effective management of the revenue cycle in order to continue to provide quality patient care, transparent and accurate industry pricing, and access to new and innovative technologies.