HCA 624: Hospital Comparative Analysis Brief

In 1918, the ACS began implementing their Hospital Standardization Program to inspect hospitals and enforce minimum standards. The initial inspection results were troubling, of 692 hospitals assessed, only 89 met the minimum standards (Chassin & O'Kane). Over the years, the program began to show significant improvement in the quality of care. By 1950, the Hospital Standardization Program accredited over 3,200 facilities across the country. Today, accreditation promotes a continuous cycle of quality improvement, rather than sustaining minimal levels of performance

Concentrate on their current clients, broaden and deepen their relationship with them, while maintaining current offerings

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently released its report to Congress on government-owned and private tax-exempt and taxable hospitals as mandated by Section 9007(e)(1) of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The ACA requires the IRS to annually submit to Congress a report providing data with respect to private tax-exempt, taxable, and government-owned hospitals regarding (1) the levels of charity care provided; (2) bad debt expenses; (3) unreimbursed costs for services provided with respect to means-tested government programs; and (4) unreimbursed costs for services provided with respect to non-means-tested government programs. The ACA also requires the report to include information with respect to private tax-exempt hospitals regarding costs incurred for community benefit activities.

Now a statute, the physician/hospital pay for quality, not quantity, public law number: 114-10 signed April 16, 2015 also referenced as H.R.2 —1st Session of 114th Congress (2015-2016), sometimes called the “Permanent Doc Fix” 04/14/2015 : Passed Senate; 03/26/2015 : Passed House (Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, 2015), which defines the payment and reimbursement reform to doctors treating patients with Medicare. This extensive reform includes the CHIP program insuring children and those families that don’t qualify for Medicare but are unable to afford private insurance and is funded by the federal government and individual states.

When hospitals first emerged in the United States, they were used primarily by the wealthy.

According to the American Hospital Association the cost of equipment, services, and information services has risen drastically. A huge problem for hospitals now is that there has been an enormous increase in patients who have Medicare or Medicaid. The Hospital Association states that “60% of all admissions. Neither program fully reimburses the cost of hospital care.” Not only is the hospital not getting paid the full amount through the health insurance, but they have also seen a jump in people who do not have insurance and cannot pay for their hospital expenses this averages out to about six percent of hospital expenses. Hospitals must assume these costs as a part of their charity pay. These costs are then calculated and increase the costs of health care for people who pay for it, in order to cover these costs.

Ozark Medical Center (OMC) in West Plains, Missouri is one of them. It is considered a Disproportionate Share Hospital or ‘DSH’ and provides charity care. As Jennifer Davidson describes it in her Health and Wealth Update story on KSMU, “Charity care is healthcare that isn’t paid for, usually because the patient doesn’t have money or insurance” (p.1). Today the DSH designated hospitals do not receive the same amount of federal funds (DSH payments) they did before the ACA from 2010 was enacted. A supreme court decision in 2012 ruled the forced Medicaid expansion, which was included in the ACA, unconstitutional for all states and as a result the expansion is now an option for the states. However, Jennifer Davidson explains that when the remaining parts of the ACA were passed, “it included a 75 percent cut in those DSH payments. That’s because another part – the Medicaid expansion part – was supposed to make up for that reduction. So: more people covered by Medicaid, less charity care – and less need for DSH payments” (p.1). There are also cuts in the ACA to Medicare payments, which in addition to the reduced DSH payments could affect a hospitals finances by a large percentage. In Jennifer Davidson’s story, Ozarks Medical Center’s CEO David Zechman explained that “OMC could see a 60% reduction in its bottom line if Medicaid doesn’t get expanded”. OMC is not the only small rural hospital in Missouri which sees

The Hospital Fairness and Transparency Act, state of Massachusetts, I feel it is important for communities’ to be aware, and to ensure their taxpayer dollars are instead dedicated to safe patient care and necessary services in the Commonwealth, and in other states as well. I find it admirable that Advocates actually provided legislators with a list of hospitals with funds stored in offshore accounts and will urge legislators to demand greater transparency by passing the HPTFA. Today communities are asking more questions related to healthcare facilities finances in their communities. Massachusetts health care costs

Section 3008 of the patient protection and affordable care act (ACA) created the Hospital-Acquired Condition (HAC) Reduction Program to provide an incentive for hospitals to reduce HACs

By doing this, the state can insure that competition between the healthcare providers is fostered and in doing so will lower prices for the consumer as well. It is also worth noting that by providing affordable healthcare, the company might also begin to get a bit of the 80 percent of those already insured in the state. The financial possibilities are endless in the state and is rich with financial growth and success for the company.

Financing health services in the United States is very important and involves an excessive amount of health institutions and activities. Health services are supported by several methods to create revenue that most hospital, clinics, and treatment centers use for daily operational costs (World Health Organization, 2006). These methods are: general taxation of the state, county, or township/municipality, Medicare or Medicaid or other socialized health insurance plans, voluntary and private health insurance and lastly, donations to health charities accepted from non-profit organizations, donations

Hospitals are a local monopoly. The result is that hospitals may tend to monopolize their local area, consolidating or driving competitors out of business and then charging rent-extracting prices for their services.  Given the basic necessity of healthcare services and the resulting political sensitivity of the issue, this is generally viewed as a Bad Thing.  So government serves a role by treating hospitals like an airport,

MD Anderson had operating profits of $531 million in FY 2010. This represented a profit margin of 26% on revenues of $2.05 billion. Stamford hospital is midsized nonprofit hospital located in Stamford, CT. It has revenues of nearly half a billion dollars. In fact, its revenues exceeded all money paid to the city of Stamford in taxes and fees. The hospital is a bigger business than its host city. Although the true cost of healthcare is difficult to calculate, many other hospitals throughout the United States are generating record profits and revenues. These profits and revenues are under heavy criticism because non-profit hospitals often outperform their for-profit counterparts. Many believe that unfair medical billing practices and skyrocketing prices contribute to these record profits at the expense of economically strapped patients. Non-profit entities enjoy tax-free status on the profits they generate. These profits are used by hospitals to expand their practices and buy out competitor hospitals, laboratories and other medically related cash generating businesses. Anti-trust laws must be enforced effectively to prevent these non-profit hospital systems from becoming monopolies within a geographic area and preventing healthy competition.

add approximately 20 to 25 new stores per year for at least the next four years

Provide some value added service to gain added revenue and also to ensure that the customer does not switch.