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HMA Insights: Your source for healthcare news, ideas and analysis.

HMA Insights – including our new podcast – puts the vast depth of HMA’s expertise at your fingertips, helping you stay informed about the latest healthcare trends and topics. Below, you can easily search based on your topic of interest to find useful information from our podcast, blogs, webinars, case studies, reports and more.

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272 Results found.

State efforts to integrate care across Medicaid FFS LTSS and Medicare Advantage D-SNPs

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This week, our In Focus section reviews a new paper from Health Management Associates,State Efforts to Integrate Care Across Medicaid Fee-for-Service Long-Term Services and Supports and Medicare Advantage Dual Eligible Special Needs Plans by Sarah Barth, Rachel Deadmon and Julie Faulhaber. Funded by UnitedHealthcare, this paper outlines approaches taken by Medicaid programs seeking to coordinate Medicare and Medicaid services for dually eligible individuals without first implementing standalone Medicaid managed long-term services and supports (MLTSS) programs.

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HMA brief examines state efforts to integrate care across Medicaid FFS LTSS and Medicare Advantage D-SNPs

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Funded by UnitedHealthcare, the issue brief, State Efforts to Integrate Care Across Medicaid Fee-for-Service Long-Term Services and Supports and Medicare Advantage Dual Eligible Special Needs Plans, outlines approaches taken by Medicaid programs seeking to coordinate Medicare and Medicaid services for dually eligible individuals without first implementing standalone Medicaid managed long-term services and supports (MLTSS) programs.

Authors are Sarah Barth, Rachel Deadmon and Julie Faulhaber.

HMA authors report examining future of COVID-19 Medicare regulation changes

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A new Issue Brief, authored by Jennifer Podulka and Jon Blum, examines the many changes to Medicare regulations put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic. The brief, Which Medicare Changes Should Continue Beyond the COVID-19 Pandemic? Four Questions for Policymakers, tracks and categorizes the regulatory changes, describes the benefits and risks of the changes, and establishes a framework to support policymakers’ decisions regarding the future for the changes after the pandemic ends.

CMS proposed rule to repeal market-based MS-DRG weight methodology for inpatient hospitals

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This week, our In Focus section reviews the key provisions of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 Medicare Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) and Long-Term Acute Care Hospital (LTCH) Proposed Rule (CMS-1752-P), which includes Medicare payment updates and policy changes for the upcoming FY, with a comment deadline of June 28, 2021. This year’s proposed rule includes several proposals the hospital industry should carefully consider. In particular, the Biden Administration has proposed to:

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Dual eligible financial alignment demonstration 2021 enrollment update

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This week, our In Focus section reviews publicly available data on enrollment in capitated financial and administrative alignment demonstrations (“Duals Demonstrations”) for individuals dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid (dual eligibles) in nine states: California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Texas. Each of these states has begun either voluntary or passive enrollment of dual eligibles into fully integrated plans providing both Medicaid and Medicare benefits (“Medicare-Medicaid Plans,” or “MMPs”) under three-way contracts between the state, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), and the MMP. As of February 2021, approximately 392,000 dual eligibles were enrolled in an MMP. Enrollment rose 5.7 percent from February of the previous year.

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HMA analysis of Medicare Advantage Star rating challenges

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This week, our In Focus section highlights changes that may affect the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Medicare Advantage Star Rating program and how these changes impact future summary Part C & D Star Rating scores. As the CMS Medicare Advantage Star Rating program continues evolving from year to year, many plans have yet to achieve at least four star status, and therefore are missing out on additional Medicare revenues. The Star Rating landscape is expected to change drastically over the next two years for plans due to CMS’ continued focus on phasing-in greater reliance on outcomes measures and measures of care experience, rather than process measures. As a result, many plans are at risk of losing their four star overall rating and underperforming plans could be at risk of receiving a low performance indicator. 

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