Mid-week update

Well, we creep closer to the beginning of the next Federal Benefits Open Season on November 12, and the FEHBlog is shocked and chagrined to realize that he overlooked noting the release of OPM's Open Season Significant Plan Changes benefits administration letter earlier this month. This annual letter provides tables of the FEHBP and FEDVIP changes for next year.  OPM also provided a set of FastFacts for enrollees affected by the changes.

While Congress is in recess until the beginning of Open Season, Kaiser Health News is reporting that Hill staffers are confident that a deal to avoid a 30% cut to physician reimbursement under Medicare Part B will occur in the lame duck session. That's good because retroactive fixes to the sustainable rate of growth formula can wreak havoc on FEHBP carriers who typically have a large contingent of Medicare eligible enrollees.

Speaking of Medicare, the AMA News frets about the ongoing consolidation of Medicare administrative contracts from 15 numbered regions to 10 lettered regions. Medicare contractor changes in 2008 wreaked havoc on providers, and CMS is reassuring providers that the current transition will be much smoother.  The Medicare law requires CMS to recompete the contracts every five years. The FEHBlog noted in the article that

The newest Medicare contractor reforms are ending partnerships that have been in place since the inception of the Medicare program. The contractor Wisconsin Physicians Service, for example, had been the payer in Wisconsin since 1966. On Sept. 27, National Government Services, with corporate headquarters in Indianapolis, won the bid to administer the Medicare program in Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

The FEHBlog made his first trip to Madison Wisconsin for a meeting at WPS in the late 1980s. Over the last decade, the FEHBlog has made several trips to Madison as his two daughters matriculated there.

Modern Healthcare reports an interesting healthcare business development -- "Retail pharmacy giant Walgreens said it will deliver prescriptions to hospitalized patients and manage their medications for the first 30 days after they leave the hospital under new contracts with a dozen hospitals and health systems." It's interesting that hospitals would turn over presumably lucrative pharmacy business to Walgreens. The article explains that the objective of the arrangement is to reduce readmissions within 30 days of discharge -- now a Medicare penalized event. "Participating hospitals include Sarasota (Fla.) Memorial Health Care System, Washington Adventist Hospital in Takoma Park, Md., and Marion (Ind.) General Hospital."

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that another new Medicare penalty is incenting hospitals to improve the food and hospitality services to patients. "Nearly $1 billion in payments to hospitals over the next year will be based in part on patient satisfaction, determined by a 27-question government survey administered to patients. Hospitals with high scores will get a bonus payment. Those with low ones will lose money."