Nursing homes, hospitals warn against reimbursement cuts

As the House and Senate conferees continue to hold meetings to reach an agreement to extend the payroll tax break and the Medicare "doc fix," health care interests are offering input into the process and making pleas to ward off what they say would be deep and damaging spending reductions.

CQ HealthBeat: Premier Argues Against Hospital Cuts
With House-Senate conferees set to hold their next meeting on Wednesday, the Premier health care alliance Tuesday sent the lawmakers a letter urging them not to solve the Medicare physician payment problem on the backs of hospitals. Premier, which includes more than 2,500 nonprofit hospitals, urged the conferees to "reject reductions to evaluation and management (E&M) outpatient services, hospital payments for bad debt and funding for hospitals that serve a disproportionate share of Medicaid patients" (1/31).

CQ HealthBeat: Industry-Funded Study Says 40 States Froze Or Cut Medicaid Payments To Nursing Facilities
Forty states either cut or froze Medicaid payment rates to skilled nursing facilities from fiscal 2009 through 2011, says a study by the consulting firm Avalere Health. The industry group that paid for the study released the data as lawmakers are weighing new payment cuts to the facilities. The study specifically found that 23 states cut rates during one of the three fiscal years 2010, 2011, and 2012. Another 17 froze rates during at least one, and often more than one, of those years, the study said (Reichard, 1/31).

Kaiser Health News: Capsules: Nursing Homes Offer Plan To Help Cut Medicare Spending
Much attention has been focused on a House-Senate conference committee's efforts to find ways to finance an extension of the current payroll tax break and to prevent a 27 percent cut in Medicare payments to physicians. But the nursing home industry is also facing some stiff funding reductions, and an industry trade group has come up with a proposal to help Congress cut Medicare spending while shielding nursing homes (Carey, 1/31).