General

By Nathan Eddy for Healthcare Finance News Escalating reimbursement delays and declining cash reserves are placing hospitals and health systems across the nation in a precarious financial predicament, according to data from Syntellis Performance Solutions’ analysis of 1,300 hospitals. The findings, published in partnership with the American Hospital Association, underscore the pressing need for measures…

By Noah Schwartz for Becker’s Hospital Review A survey of 2,014 adults from consulting giant Deloitte found that 53% believe generative artificial intelligence could improve access to healthcare. Here are four takeaways from the Nov. 16 report:

By Beth Friedman for For the Record My health care career began in the 1980s when I was a clinical coder for a small Pittsburgh hospital. Even then, before the Prospective Payment System and DRGs, a steady drumbeat of payer denials echoed throughout the business office, HIM, and finance departments of most health care provider…

By Emily Olsen for Healthcare Dive Dive Brief: Dive Insight: High labor expenses pummeled hospital margins last year, and many facilities continue to struggle financially even as pressure lifts for some providers.  Those financial challenges, combined with the COVID-19 pandemic, paved the way for AI and virtual care adoption, which could lessen some of the resource strain, the survey said.…

By Claire Wallace for Becker’s Hospital Review UnitedHealthcare Group, which has an annual revenue of $324 billion, is the largest health insurance company in the U.S. by market share, according to a report from ValuePenguin updated in October.  Here are the 10 largest payers in the U.S. and their market share: 

By Susan Vogel for Healthcare Dive Dive Brief: Dive Insight: Physician turnover has risen steadily over the past decade, with attrition rates rising 43% between 2010 and 2018 from 5.3% to 7.6%, according to a study published in July. The COVID-19 pandemic further increased turnover, with over 71,000 physicians exiting the industry between 2021 and 2022, according to a…

By Molly Gamble for Becker’s Hospital Review Newsweek has released the top 600 U.S. hospitals ranked by state, sorted by a score that factors recommendations, patient experience, quality and patient-reported outcome measures.  Hospitals from every U.S. state were eligible for the 2024 ranking and included in the nationwide survey except for those with a 1-star rating…

By Jonathan Wiik for For the Record Magazine The state of revenue cycle management (RCM) prior to COVID-19 was running the same as it has for the past few years—marginal improvements here and there, while at the same time, large inefficiencies in place. Hospitals and health systems were having one of the best quarters in…

By Susan Morse for Healthcare Finance Despite being able to be reimbursed for telehealth services at the higher facility rate for another year, providers are frequently billing for these virtual visits at a lower level-of-service code, Epic Research has found. Epic’s study found this holds true for both primary and specialty care. Telehealth visits are more…

By Emily Olsen for Healthcare Dive Dive Brief: Dive Insight: As providers double down on IT spending, respondents noted they’re looking for more simplified technology stacks and fewer vendors, according to the survey of more than 200 healthcare executives. Eighty-one percent said they prioritize buying from existing vendors, a boon for electronic health record companies as 79% noted…