Organizational Independence: Mission Impossible?

http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/leadership/organizational-independence-mission-impossible?spMailingID=9084486&spUserID=MTMyMzQyMDQxMTkyS0&spJobID=941950601&spReportId=OTQxOTUwNjAxS0

independence-day-64dMission Impossible

Adherence to a strict interpretation of the goal of independence can be a critical barrier to positioning the organization for a value-based environment.

Pressure Mounts to Risk-Adjust for Poverty

http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/finance/pressure-mounts-risk-adjust-poverty?spMailingID=9084486&spUserID=MTMyMzQyMDQxMTkyS0&spJobID=941950601&spReportId=OTQxOTUwNjAxS0#

child-poverty

Hospital associations and trade groups are lobbying federal officials to account for how “the disease of poverty” impacts the health of patients—and costs hospitals.

Septicemia still tops the list of most expensive inpatient conditions

http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/healthcare/septicemia-still-tops-most-expensive-conditions?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal&mrkid=959610&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTnpjME9EY3hNV0k1T0dReSIsInQiOiJ5SjZJckh1d29TRXJyNk92aDRnOFc5V1ZiSFpCN1hJVFdYNDVuMjJjZ3czY0h4cm8rNDVUSXRkRE5tcnBwanlvaFdyZHRBdG1WMUoya1MraXJlQzJOeE5qR3c1Q24wYWc1SXF0Zk5UOWFvND0ifQ%3D%3D

hospital

Septicemia continues to top a list of the most expensive inpatient conditions, according to a new report from the Association for Healthcare Research and Quality’s Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project.

http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/reports/statbriefs/sb204-Most-Expensive-Hospital-Conditions.jsp?utm_source=AHRQ&utm_medium=AHRQSTAT&utm_content=Content&utm_term=HCUP&utm_campaign=AHRQ_SB_204_2016

 

A warning on hospital mergers: After California allowed big chains to grow, prices

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-california-hospitals-20160613-snap-story.html?utm_campaign=CHL%3A+Daily+Edition&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=30727033&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_lSFFriq5yA5SisvjbMwODLDPAQmVwWrr_t6XuMvz-oA2lMa5974U7UAJiXhUp_HB_zXoS9iYPUKey6BSklKM–HtzoA&_hsmi=30727033

Big California hospital chains not only raised prices faster than inflation, but gave competitors room to raise their own prices.

Hospital prices … increased substantially in California during a period of low overall price inflation, low economic growth, and declining demand.— Melnick and Fonkych, USC

Hospitals Off Track to Hit Value-Based Targets

http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/leadership/hospitals-track-hit-value-based-targets?spMailingID=9073752&spUserID=MTMyMzQyMDQxMTkyS0&spJobID=941690582&spReportId=OTQxNjkwNTgyS0

Fewer than one in four hospitals are scheduled to hit the Obama Administration’s 2018 goal of providing at least half their care through value-based structures, research shows.

Not only are few hospitals scheduled to meet the 2018 value-based goal set by the Department of Health and Human Services, but only 3% meet that goal right now.

Further, only 23% expect to meet it even as late as 2019. The survey of 190 U.S. hospitals was conducted by Health Catalyst, a healthcare data and analytics company.

As Hospital Chains Grow, So Do Their Prices For Care

http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/finance/hospital-chains-grow-so-do-their-prices-care?spMailingID=9073752&spUserID=MTMyMzQyMDQxMTkyS0&spJobID=941690582&spReportId=OTQxNjkwNTgyS0#

Dollars

As health care consolidation accelerates nationwide, a new study shows that hospital prices in two of California’s largest health systems were 25 percent higher than at other hospitals around the state.

Achieving financial reporting harmony post-M&A

http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/achieving-financial-reporting-harmony-post-m-a.html

3 pies-Grant Thornton

M&A continues picking up speed in healthcare, generally producing expected results — planned benefits plus feared fragmentation. Among the many functions that may become at least temporarily stressed is finance.

M&A, for all its advantages, is a disruptor. The amount of disruption is based on such factors as existing infrastructures, maturity of business processes, level of change and enterprise readiness to accept the change. Everything about the conjoining organizations — people, schedules, cultures and systems — is pulled together with an expectation that on the backside the newly formed enterprise will work.

For the finance team, this means dealing with data that lacks common structure, terminology, business process and technology. Finance has the unenviable task of capturing data in its varied quality and formats in a myriad of locations within the formerly separate organizations. Order must be created so that the financial data is fit for consolidation, close and reporting for the new enterprise.

14 hospitals receive credit downgrades in past month

http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/14-hospitals-receive-credit-downgrades-in-past-month-june16.html

Credit Rating Downgrade

Supreme Court issues key decision on False Claims Act liability: 9 things to know

http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/legal-regulatory-issues/supreme-court-issues-key-decision-on-false-claims-act-liability-9-things-to-know.html

Supreme Court

Commenting on the Supreme Court’s decision, Jessica L. Ellsworth, partner at Hogan Lovells, says the limitations demonstrated that the high court “fully understood that the False Claims Act remains about fraudulent conduct — not garden variety foot-faults that a regulated party may experience in complying with complex regulatory and statutory obligations.”