May 9, 2012 | By Alicia Caramenico Fierce Healthcare Large hospital systems are using their size and market clout to boost prices, a trend that started long before the health reform law passed, according to a study in this month’s Health Affairs. It’s the “must-have” hospital systems and large physician groups–providers that health plans… Read more »
Posts Tagged: hospital administration
Hospitals to see more bad debt without health reform
June 8, 2012 | By Alicia Caramenico Fierce Health Finance While the industry awaits the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling later this month, a new report from Moody’s Investors Service warns that a full or partial repeal of the health reform law will hurt for-profit hospitals. If the Supreme Court strikes down the entire Patient… Read more »
Financial stress pushes hospitals to partnerships
Kansas City Business Journal by David Twiddy, Reporter Date: Friday, June 1, 2012 Carondelet Health has confirmed that it is investigating a potential merger, joint venture or other partnership to continue operating its two Kansas City-area hospitals. In a released statement, Carondelet CEO Fleury Yelvington said the health care provider “like most health systems in… Read more »
Busy Hospitals Discharge Patients Too Soon, See Higher Readmissions
Patients that are discharged during the busiest times for hospitals are 50 percent more likely to come back in within three days, according to research published in Health Care Management Science. Two new studies from the University of Maryland suggest that that revenue from surgery is driving patients going home too early. They looked at… Read more »
How Low Will Hospital Margins Fall Due To Cost-Cutting?
Back in the early years of the current recession, evidence shows that not-for-profit hospitals and systems created stable or improved operations and kept healthy operating margins thanks to spending cuts. Some efforts made headlines, such as construction delays and layoffs. Hospitals also froze wages, cut spending on supplies and equipment and closed or cut unprofitable… Read more »
Labor Costs Comparable for Temporary and Permanent Nurses
Hospital executives constantly face the challenge of managing labor costs and fluctuating levels of available clinical personnel while managing patient care. KPMG LLP’s Healthcare & Pharmaceuticals division recently conducted a study that addressed hospitals’ views on quality of patient care, direct employee labor costs, and temporary nurse usage. The 2011 U.S. Hospital Nursing Labor Costs… Read more »
ACOs – How They Will Work
In our last post, we discussed the basics of ACOs: what they are and why they have become such a hot topic in the healthcare industry. Before ACOs officially launch in January 2012, there are many details still to be worked out, both within the industry and by potential patients. How would ACOs be paid?… Read more »
An Introduction to ACOs
Those involved in the healthcare industry will be hearing a lot about accountable care organizations (ACOs) in the coming months. As presented on seven pages of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) signed into law last March, the stated purpose of ACOs is to offer doctors and hospitals financial incentives to provide good… Read more »
What Factors Should You Measure When Evaluating Patient Flow?
When patients visit emergency rooms or outpatient clinics in need of medical attention, effective patient flow facilitates the timely care of patients and avoids a bottleneck that can disrupt more than one department of the hospital. Patient flow encompasses the systematic process of attending to patients, from the time they walk into a medical facility… Read more »
Improving ER Patient Flow
Patients aren’t the only ones who worry that their hospital’s emergency room (ER) is too busy to deliver reliable, prompt care. A majority of hospital leaders worry about the same thing. In a recent survey conducted by the American College of Emergency Physicians, most administrators named overcrowding in the ER as one of their top… Read more »