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Medicare inpatient pay rates examined

Hospitalist Leadership Connection, November 26, 2006

Small yet significant steps to make Medicare inpatient hospital payment rates more accurate could discourage providers from refusing to take Medicare patients, but policymakers must ensure that the reimbursement system is reformed in the coming years, according to a perspective in the November 16 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Economist Paul B. Ginsburg, PhD, president of the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC), authored the article. He writes that without policies to ensure more accurate payment to physicians, providers will gravitate to offering the services and procedures that most benefit their bottom line.

Ginsburg says Medicare's inpatient prospective payment system is meant to better align relative payment rates for various physician services with the costs required to providing them, which would reduce incentives for hospitals to focus on more profitable services at the expense of less profitable ones.

To access the full perspective, click here.

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