Solving surprise medical bills (Mark Hall, Paul Ginsburg, Steven M. Lieberman, Loren Adler, Caitlin Brandt, Margaret Darling, Brookings)

Imagine you walk into a hospital for a planned procedure, for example a knee operation to be performed by an orthopedic surgeon. Before you scheduled the surgery, you did your due diligence and confirmed that the surgeon performing the procedure participated in your insurance plan, and that the hospital where you were having the surgery was also in-network.

https://www.brookings.edu/research/solving-surprise-medical-bills/

Physician payment in Medicare is changing: Three highlights in the MACRA proposed rule that providers need to know (Kavita Patel, Margaret Darling, Caitlin Brandt, Paul Ginsburg, Brookings)

The passage of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) just over a year ago signaled a strong and unique bipartisan agreement to move towards value-based care, but until recently, many of the details surrounding how it would be implemented remained unknown. But last week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Studies (CMS) released roughly 1,000 pages that shed more light on how physician payment will hopefully dramatically change for the better.

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/health360/posts/2016/05/04-three-highlights-in-the-macra-proposed-rule-providers-need-to-know-patel-darling-brandt-ginsburg

A controversial new demonstration in Medicare: Potential implications for physician-administered drugs (Kavita Patel, Caitlin Brandt, Brookings)

According to an August 2015 survey, 72 percent of Americans find drug costs unreasonable, with 83 percent believing that the federal government should be able to negotiate prices for Medicare. Recently, Acting Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Andy Slavitt commented that spending on medicines increased 13 percent in 2014 while health care spending growth overall was only 5 percent, the highest rate of drug spending growth since 2001.

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/health360/posts/2016/05/03-controversial-new-demonstration-in-medicare-patel-brandt