Category Archives: Medical Group Management Association (MGMA)

Why providers are paying fees to get paid

Posted on by • Posted in ACA, American Medical Association (AMA), Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT), Electronic Transmission, Health Policy, Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), Physician • Leave a comment

https://mailchi.mp/d29febe6ab3c/the-weekly-gist-august-25-2023?e=d1e747d2d8

An investigative piece published this month by ProPublica documents how it came to be that nearly 60 percent of healthcare providers report being charged fees to receive electronic payments from insurers. 

The fees, which can be as high as five percent of total reimbursement, were briefly forbidden by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), before the agency reversed its policy in 2018. The article follows one dogged physician’s efforts to uncover why CMS allows these fees. His voluminous stream of public records requests revealed a highly coordinated pressure campaign, mounted by the insurance industry through one particularly influential regulator-turned-lobbyist.

While the American Medical Association has urged the Biden administration to protect physicians from these fees, and the Veterans Health Administration is refusing to pay them, CMS is so far maintaining the position that electronic-payment claims-processing fees are permissible. 

The Gist: Through partnerships with payment companies, who charge double the average fees of electronic bank transfers and share the spoils of their “virtual credit cards”, insurers are essentially using the same business model as credit card companies, skimming revenue from physician payments just as Visa and MasterCard do to merchants. 

With the increasing consolidation of both insurers and claims processors, physicians are left with little recourse but to pay these fees, as nonelectronic payments come with infrastructure costs and payment delays.

While the shift to electronic payments spurred on by the Affordable Care Act was supposed to improve efficiency, this article offers yet another example of how efficiency gains can be captured by industry middlemen before they can be translated into provider and consumer benefits. 

MedPAC declines to recommend to Congress additional pay bumps for doctors, hospitals

Posted on by • Posted in Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Health Policy, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Medical Group, Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), Physician, Physician Practice Management, Rev Cycle Management • Leave a comment
https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/hospitals/medpac-declines-to-recommend-to-congress-additional-pay-bumps-for-doctors-hospitals#:~:text=MedPAC%20declines%20to%20recommend%20to%20Congress%20additional%20pay%20bumps%20for%20doctors%2C%20hospitals,-by%20Robert%20King&text=A%20top%20Medicare%20advisory%20board,of%20the%20COVID%2D19%20pandemic.
Medicare spending costs money

A top Medicare advisory board did not recommend any new payment hikes for acute care hospitals or doctors for 2023, stating that targeted relief funding has helped blunt the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), which makes recommendations to Congress and the federal government on Medicare issues, voted on the payment changes to Congress during its Thursday meeting. The panel decided against recommending any pay hikes.

The commission unanimously voted to update 2023 rates for acute care hospitals by the amounts determined under current law. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will publish its update to the current law payment rates this summer.

MedPAC estimated that the rates will increase 2% and that there would be 3.1% growth in hospital wages and benefits, but these “may be higher or lower by the time this is finalized,” said MedPAC staff member Alison Binkowski.

She added there will be another estimated 0.5% increase in inpatient rates.

MedPAC decided not to recommend any pay rates beyond current law after looking at the financial picture for hospitals and found the indicators of payment adequacy are generally positive.

“Hospitals maintained strong access to capital thanks to substantial federal support, including targeted federal relief funds to rural hospitals which raised their all-payer total margin to a near-record total high,” Binkowski said.

She added fewer hospitals closed, and facilities continued to have positive marginal Medicare profits.

It was also difficult to interpret changes in quality that traditionally would determine whether a payment boost would be needed.

“For example, mortality rates increased in 2020, but this reflects the tragic effects of the pandemic on the elderly rather than a change in the quality of care provided to Medicare beneficiaries or the adequacy of Medicare payments,” Binkowski said.

Even though commission members agreed with the recommendation for hospitals, they were concerned whether it was enough to help facilities meet drastic increases in labor expenses.

“With labor, it is more than just a salary increase these hospitals are seeing,” said commission member Brian DeBusk.

He noted that hospitals haven’t just seen an increase in rates for contract or temporary nurses, but in nursing education as well.

MedPAC also recommended no changes to the statutory payment update for dialysis facilities and shouldn’t give a payment update to ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) due to confidence in payment adequacy for the facilities.

“Despite the public health emergency, the number of ASCs increased by 2% in 2020,” said MedPAC staff member Daniel Zabinski. “The growth that we saw in the number of ASCs also suggests access to capital remains adequate.”

Physician fee schedule recommendation

The commission decided to take a similar estimate with the physician fee schedule, calling for any update to be tied to current law, which is estimated to have no change in spending.

Medicare payments to clinicians declined by $9 billion in 2020 but were offset thanks to congressional relief funds. Physicians also got a 4% bump to payments through 2022 compared to prior law.

The temporary rate hike is expected to go away at the start of 2023, but physician groups are likely to lobby Congress to keep the pay bump intact.

Physician groups already blasted the recommendation from MedPAC.

Anders Gilberg, senior vice president of government affairs for the Medical Group Management Association, tweeted that the recommendation was out of touch, especially after new reports of inflation.

“Hard to conceive of a more misguided recommendation to Congress at a time when practices face massive staffing shortages and skyrocketing expenses,” he tweeted.

Congress Urged to Stop Pending Medicare Payment Cuts

Posted on by • Posted in American Medical Association (AMA), American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act of 2021, Association of American Medical Colleges, Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), Health Policy, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), Medicare, Medicare Cuts, Medicare Sequestration, PAYGO (Pay-as-you-go) Act, Physician • Leave a comment
https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/medicare/91657?xid=fb_o&trw=no&fbclid=IwAR35SCMPaH830EiFznbZVZkV03Zd7KKejxw2T3U9DZjWZS8KX3UbKJHGIHA

— At stake: scheduled payment reductions totalling $54 billion

Healthcare groups are applauding efforts being made in Congress to stop two different cuts to the Medicare budget — both of which are due to “sequestration” requirements — before it’s too late.

One cut, part of the normal budget process, is a 2% — or $18 billion — cut in the projected Medicare budget under a process known as “sequestration.” Sequestration allows for prespecified cuts in projected agency budget increases if Congress can’t agree on their own cuts. Medicare’s budget had been slated for a 2% sequester cut in fiscal year 2020; however, due to the pandemic and the accompanying increased healthcare needs, Congress passed a moratorium on the 2% cut. That moratorium is set to expire on April 1.

Another projected cut — this one for 4%, or $36 billion — will be triggered by the COVID relief bill, formally known as the American Rescue Plan Act. That legislation, which President Biden signed into law last Thursday, must conform to the PAYGO (pay-as-you-go) Act, which requires that any legislation that has a cost to it that is not otherwise offset must be offset by sequestration-style budget cuts to mandatory programs, including Medicare.

There are now several bills in Congress to address these pending cuts. H.R. 1868, co-sponsored by House Budget Committee chairman John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), House Ways & Means Committee chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.), and House Energy & Commerce Committee chairman Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.), among others, would get rid of the PAYGO Act requirement and extend the 2% Medicare sequester moratorium through the end of 2021.

Another bill, H.R. 315, introduced in January by Reps. Bradley Schneider (D-Ill.) and David McKinley (R-W.Va.), would extend the 2% sequester moratorium until the end of the public health emergency has been declared. In the Senate, S. 748, introduced Monday by senators Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) would do the same.

“For many providers, the looming Medicare payment cuts would pose a further threat to their ability to stay afloat and serve communities during a time when they are most needed,” Shaheen said in a press release. “Congress should be doing everything in its power to prevent these cuts from taking effect during these challenging times, which is why I’m introducing this bipartisan legislation with Senator Collins. I urge the Senate to act at once to protect our health care providers and ensure they can continue their work on the frontlines of COVID-19.”

Not surprisingly, provider groups were happy about the actions in Congress. “MGMA [Medical Group Management Association] supports recent bipartisan, bicameral efforts to extend the 2% Medicare sequester moratorium for the duration of the COVID-19 public health emergency,” said Anders Gilberg, senior vice president for government affairs at MGMA, in a statement. “Without congressional action, the country’s medical groups will face a combined 6% sequester cut — a payment cut that is unsustainable given the financial hardships due to COVID-19 and keeping up with the cost of inflation.”

Leonard Marquez, senior director of government relations and legislative advocacy at the Association of American Medical Colleges, said in a statement that it was “critical” that Congress extend the 2% sequester moratorium “to help ensure hospitals, faculty physicians, and all providers have the necessary financial resources to continue providing quality care to COVID-19 and all patients ... While we are making progress against COVID-19, cutting provider payments in the middle of a pandemic could jeopardize the nation’s recovery.”

The American Medical Association (AMA) also urged Congress to prevent both the 2% and the 4% Medicare cuts. “We strongly oppose these arbitrary across-the-board Medicare cuts, and the predictably devastating impact they would have on many already distressed physician practices,” AMA executive vice president and CEO James Madara, MD, said in a letter sent to congressional leaders at the beginning of March.

In the letter, Madara noted that an AMA report, “Changes in Medicare Physician Spending During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” analyzed Medicare physician claims data and found spending dropped as much as 57% below expected pre-pandemic levels in April 2020.

“And, while Medicare spending on physician services partially recovered from the April low, it was still 12% less than expected by the end of June 2020,” he continued. “During the first half of 2020, the cumulative estimated reduction in Medicare physician spending associated with the pandemic was $9.4 billion (19%). Results from an earlier AMA-commissioned survey of 3,500 practicing physicians conducted from mid-July through August 2020 found that 81% of respondents were still experiencing lower revenue than before the pandemic.”

Not everyone is a fan of extending the 2% cut moratorium, however. “Bad idea,” said James Capretta, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank, at an event Tuesday on Medicare solvency sponsored by the Bipartisan Policy Center. “There’s plenty of give in the revenue streams of these systems that creating a precedent where we’re going to go back to the pre-sequester level — it’s better to move forward and if there are struggling systems out there, deal with it on an ad hoc basis rather than just across the board paying out a lot more money, which I don’t think is necessary.” He added, however, that he agreed with the bill to get rid of the 4% cut. “The bigger cut associated with PAYGO enforcement I think would be too much.”

Health plans ramp up physician practice acquisitions

Posted on by • Posted in Health Insurance Industry, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Medical Group, Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), Medicare Advantage, Mergers & Acquisitions, Physician, Physician Practice Management, Private Equity, Strategy • Leave a comment

https://mailchi.mp/9e118141a707/the-weekly-gist-march-6-2020?e=d1e747d2d8

 

Health systems and private equity firms aren’t the only ones aggregating physician practices—many large insurers are rapidly acquiring or affiliating with physician groups, especially to support their Medicare Advantage (MA) strategies.

As the map below shows, most insurers are focusing this vertical integration in states like Florida, Texas, and California—places where they also have large populations of MA beneficiaries. Astonishingly, UnitedHealth Group—through its Optum division—is likely the largest employer of physicians in the US, employing or affiliating with 50,000 physicians—roughly 5,000 more than HCA Healthcare and nearly double the number of Kaiser Permanente. The number of Optum-controlled physicians has increased rapidly in recent years, the result of many large-scale deals, including the $4.3B acquisition of DaVita Medical Group.

When it comes to leveraging this growing physician network, United is setting its sights well beyond Medicare Advantage, as demonstrated by its recent introduction of Harmony, a commercial narrow network health plan in Southern California based almost exclusively on a network of Optum physicians.

Meanwhile, Humana’s physician strategy has focused more on affiliations with non-traditional groups serving MA patients, including Iora Health and Oak Street Health—though Humana also has two large primary care groups, Conviva and Partners in Primary Care, the latter of which just secured a $600M private equity investment to expand.

Notably absent from this map is Aetna, which has been pursuing a different strategy, focused around steering its MA population to its advanced practice provider-run HealthHUBs in CVS pharmacies.

This trend of insurer acquisition of physicians is obviously worrisome for health systems, as the health plans they negotiate with for payment are now directly competing with them at the front end of the delivery system.  

 

 

Hospital price transparency push draws industry ire, but effects likely limited

Posted on by • Posted in America's Health Insurance Plans, American Hospital Association (AHA), Federation of American Hospitals, Health Insurance Industry, Health Policy, Health System, Hospital, Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), Out of Pocket Expenses, Paperwork Burden, Physician, Physician Practice Management, President Executive Order, Price Transparency, Transparency • Leave a comment

https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/hospital-price-transparency-push-draws-industry-ire-but-effects-likely-lim/557536/

Image result for price transparency

Far-reaching rules mandating industry price transparency could mark a major shift, but experts are skeptical the efforts will meaningfully lower prices for patients without a more fundamental system overhaul.

President Donald Trump’s executive order signed Monday directs HHS and other federal departments to begin rulemaking to require hospitals and payers to release information based on their privately negotiated rates. Providers would also have to give patients estimates of their out-of-pocket costs before a procedure.

The moves come amid efforts from the federal government and Congress to push the healthcare industry to address patient anger over high prices, particularly regarding what medical bills they can expect to receive.

Many details must still be worked out as HHS and CMS craft their proposals, but providers and payers were quick to condemn any notion of making negotiated rates public. A legal challenge to the rules is also likely.

Many policy analysts and economists said that while price transparency is good in theory, current evidence shows patients don’t take advantage of pricing information now available, said Ateev Mehrotra, associate policy of healthcare policy and Harvard Medical School.

Patients are wary of going against a doctor’s advice to undergo a certain procedure or test, and to get it done at a certain facility. A difference in price may not be enough to sway them.

Also, the healthcare system has so many moving parts and unique elements that understanding a medical bill and how the price was calculated is daunting, to say the least.

“That complexity hinders the ability of people to effectively shop for care,” Mehrotra told Healthcare Dive “It’s not like going to Amazon and buying a toothbrush or whatever.”

What the order actual does

The executive order has two main directives:

  • Within 60 days, HHS must propose a regulation “to require hospitals to publicly post standard charge information, including charges and information based on negotiated rates and for common or shoppable items and services, in an easy-to-understand, consumer-friendly, and machine-readable format using consensus-based data standards that will meaningfully inform patients’ decision making and allow patients to compare prices across hospitals.”
  • Within 90 days, HHS and the Departments of Labor and Treasury must solicit comment on a proposal “to require healthcare providers, health insurance issuers, and self-insured group health plans to provide or facilitate access to information about expected out-of-pocket costs for items or services to patients before they receive care.”

The order also outlines smaller steps, including a report from HHS on how the federal government and private companies are impeding quality and price transparency in healthcare and another on measures the White House can take to deter surprise billing.

It also directs federal agencies to increase access to de-identified claims data (an idea strongly favored by policy analysts and researchers) and requires HHS to identify priority databases to be publicly released.

The order requests the Secretary of the Treasury expand coverage options for high-deductible health plans and health savings accounts. It specifically asks the department to explore using HSA funds for direct primary care, an idea Senate HELP Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said he “especially like[d].”

Industry pushes back

The order itself wastes no time in pointing the finger at industry players for current patient frustrations with the system. “Opaque pricing structures may benefit powerful special interest groups, such as large hospital systems and insurance companies, but they generally leave patients and taxpayers worse off than would a more transparent system,” according to the document.

As expected, payer and provider groups slammed any attempt to force them to reveal the rates they negotiate behind closed doors, though they expressed appreciation for the general push toward more transparency.

The American Hospital Association shied away from strong language as details are still being worked out, but did say “publicly posting privately negotiated rates could, in fact, undermine the competitive forces of private market dynamics, and result in increased prices.”

The Federation of American Hospitals took a similar tone in a statement from CEO Chip Kahn. “If implementing regulations take the wrong course, however, it may undercut the way insurers pay for hospital services resulting in higher spending,” he said.

Both hospital groups highlighted more transparency for patient out-of-pocket costs and suggests the onus should be on payers to communicate information on cost-sharing and co-insurance.

Mollie Gelburd, associate director of government affairs at MGMA, which represents physician groups, said doctors don’t want to be in the position of explaining complex insurance terms and rules to a patient.

“While physicians should be encouraged to talk to patients about costs, to unnecessarily have them be doing all this education when they should be doing clinical care, that sort of gets concerning,” she said.

Practices are more concerned about payer provider directories and their accuracy, something not addressed in the executive order. Not having that type of information can be detrimental for a patient seeking care and further regulation in the area could help, Gelburd said.

Regardless, providers will likely view with frustration any regulations that increase their reporting and paperwork burdens, she said.

“I think the efficacy of pricing transparency and reducing healthcare costs, the jury is still out on that,” she said. “But if you have that onerous administrative requirement, that’s certainly going to drive up costs for those practices, especially those smaller practices.”

Payer lobby America’s Health Insurance Plans was quick to voice its opposition to the order.

CEO Matt Eyles said in a statement disclosing privately negotiated rates would “reduce incentives to offer lower rates, creating a floor — not a ceiling — for the prices that hospitals would be willing to accept.” He argued that current tools payers use to inform patients of cost expectations, such as cost calculators, are already offering meaningful help.

AHIP also said the order works against the industry’s efforts to shift to paying for quality instead of quantity. “Requiring price disclosure for thousands of hospital items, services and procedures perpetuates the old days of the American health care system paying for volume over value,” he said. “We know that is a formula for higher costs and worse care for everyone.”

Limited effects

One potential effect of making rates public is that prices would eventually trend toward equalization. That wouldn’t necessarily reduce costs, however, and could actually increase them for some patients. A payer able to negotiate a favorable rate for a specific patient population in a specific geographic area might lose that advantage, for example, Christopher Holt, director of healthcare policy at the conservative leaning American Action Forum, told Healthcare Dive.

John Nicolaou of PA Consulting told Healthcare Dive consumers will need help deciphering whatever information is made available however. Reams of data could offer the average patient little to no insight without payer or third-party tools to analyze and understand the information.

“It starts the process, just publishing that information and just making it available,” he said. “It’s got to be consumable and actionable, and that’s going to take a lot more time.”

The order does require the information being made public be “easy-to-understand” and able to “meaningfully inform patients’ decision making and allow patients to compare prices across hospitals.” That’s far easier said than done, however, Harvard’s Mehrotra said. “We haven’t seen anybody able to put this information in a usable way that patients are able to effectively act upon,” he said.

Holt said patients are also limited in their ability to shop around for healthcare, considering they often have little choice in what insurance company they use. People with employer-based plans typically don’t have the option to switch, and those in the individual market can only do so once a year.

Another aspect to consider is the limited reach of the federal government. CMS can require providers and payers in the Medicare Advantage program, for example, to meet price transparency requirements, but much of the licensing and regulations for payer and providers comes at the state level.

Waiting for details, lawsuits

One of the biggest questions for payers and providers in the wake of Monday’s announcement is how far exactly the rulemaking from HHS will go in mandating transparency. One one end, the requirements could stick close to giving patients information about their expected out-of-pocket costs without revealing the details of payer-provider negotiations. Full transparency, on the other hand, would mean publishing the now-secret negotiated rates for anyone to see.

“I think it’s the start of a much longer process,” Holt said. “It’s going to depend a lot on how much information is going to be required to be divulged and how that’s going to be collected.”

It’s almost certain that as soon as any concrete efforts at implementation are made, lawsuits will follow.

That’s what happened after Ohio passed a price transparency law in 2015 that required providers give patients information on out-of-pocket costs before a procedure — a proposal the executive order also puts forward.

The law still has not been enforced, as it has been caught up in the courts. The Ohio Hospital Association and Ohio State Medical Association sued over the law, arguing it was too vague and could lead to a delay in patient care.