Literature GAO reviewed indicated that private insurance payments for anesthesia services on average were more than 3-1/2 times those of Medicare payments. This payment difference increased from what GAO reported in 2007—average private insurance payments for certain anesthesia services in 2004 were about 3 times those of Medicare. While Medicare rates for anesthesia services are set by the Cen

As of February 2018, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) had tested, or was in the process of testing, six episode-based payment models as alternatives to traditional Medicare. In these models, rather than pay providers largely based on the volume and complexity of each individual service, CMS establishes a target payment amount to cover the costs of all the services Medicare benef

Federal support of graduate medical education (GME) training in children's hospitals is provided under the Children's Hospitals Graduate Medical Education (CHGME) Payment Program. In 2014, a program reauthorization expanded eligibility for the CHGME program to two additional types of hospitals, after which four hospitals became newly qualified. Similar to the Medicare GME program, CHGME program p

Since 2009, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has invested over $35 billion in health information technology, including efforts to enhance patient access to and use of electronic health information. One of the largest programs is the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS) Medicare Electronic Health Record Incentive Program (Medicare EHR Program), which, among other things

Between 1991 and 2014, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)--the federal agency responsible for the oversight of medical devices--cleared 25 submissions for laparoscopic power morcellators for the U.S. market. FDA cleared the submissions for these devices, which cut tissue into small pieces to facilitate removal through small incision sites of gynecological and other types of minimally invasive

The six selected hospitals in GAO's study identified three key challenges that affected their efforts to implement evidence-based patient safety practices. Patient safety practices, such as using proper antiseptics, can reduce or eliminate adverse events, which GAO defined as events such as infections that harm patients and result from the medical care patients receive rather than patients' under

Vertical consolidation is a financial arrangement that occurs when a hospital acquires a physician practice and/or hires physicians to work as salaried employees. The number of vertically consolidated hospitals and physicians increased from 2007 through 2013. Specifically, the number of vertically consolidated hospitals increased from about 1,400 to 1,700, while the number of vertically consolida

The number of Medicare prostate cancer-related intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) services performed by self-referring groups increased rapidly, while declining for non-self-referring groups from 2006 to 2010. Over this period, the number of prostate cancer-related IMRT services performed by self-referring groups increased from about 80,000 to 366,000. Consistent with that growth, expen

In summary, 1,964 hospitals and 45,962 professionals were awarded a total of approximately $2.7 billion in Medicaid EHR incentive payments for 2011. These 1,964 hospitals, which represented 39 percent of the 5,013 eligible hospitals, were awarded a total of $1.7 billion in Medicaid EHR incentive payments for 2011.While the amount of Medicaid EHR incentive payments awarded to each hospital ranged

From 2004 through 2010, the number of self-referred and non-self-referred advanced imaging services--magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) services--both increased, with the larger increase among self-referred services. For example, the number of self-referred MRI services increased over this period by more than 80 percent, compared with an increase of 12 percent for non-s