Study Shows Declines In Payments For Emergency Department Visits; New Resources Released About Medicare Part D;

Main Category: Medicare / Medicaid / SCHIP
Also Included In: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance;  Public Health;  Seniors / Aging
Article Date: 12 Nov 2007 - 7:00 PDT

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"Decreasing Reimbursements for Outpatient Emergency Department Visits Across Payer Groups From 1996-2004," Annals of Emergency Medicine: The study finds that the share of emergency department charges paid was consistently lowest for Medicaid beneficiaries and the uninsured and was consistently the highest for visits by privately insured patients. The study also finds that declines in the proportion of payments to charges over the eight-year period tended to be greater among insured patients, and reimbursements declined the least for the uninsured (Hsia et al., "Decreasing Reimbursements for Outpatient Emergency Department Visits Across Payer Groups From 1996-2004," November 2007).

New resources for Medicare prescription drug plans, Kaiser Family Foundation: Ahead of the next open-enrollment period for the Medicare prescription drug benefit, the Kaiser Family Foundation has issued two new Medicare Part D Data Spotlights. The first spotlight analyzes premiums charged by 1,824 stand-alone Medicare drug plans that will be offered in 2008. The second spotlight examines the so-called "doughnut hole" coverage gap in Medicare drug plans. Also available is a new chartpack that includes key information about 2007 Medicare drug plan enrollment, by company and by plan. Updated fact sheets that provide an overview of the Medicare drug benefit and a state-by-state look at key features of the available 2008 stand-alone plans also are available online (Kaiser Family Foundation release, 11/7).

"The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Job Quality in the United States Over the Three Most Recent Business Cycles," Center for Economic and Policy Research: The number of jobs that pay at least $17 per hour and provide health insurance and a pension declined by 3.5 million between 2000 and 2006, the report finds. According to the report, the driving force behind the trend is the deterioration in employer-provided health insurance, which decreased by 3.1 percentage points during that period, and employer-sponsored pension and retirement-savings plans, which decreased by 4.9 percentage points (Schmitt, "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly: Job Quality in the United States Over the Three Most Recent Business Cycles," November 2007).

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