Articles in the December issue discuss hospitals–lawsuits related to unpaid bills, antitrust enforcement, and how Medicaid
expansion impacts critical access hospitals. For December’s DataWatch article, Zack Cooper and coauthors analyzed Wisconsin court records to document trends in hospital lawsuits to recover patients’ unpaid medical bills. The authors found that the
number of these lawsuits increased by 37 percent in Wisconsin from 2001 to 2018. Additionally, they discovered that there were 1.86 lawsuits per 1,000 Black residents, compared to 1.32 per 1,000 non-Hispanic White residents. After examining the role of states in antitrust enforcement, Brent Fulton and coauthors concluded that “relatively few proposed hospital mergers were challenged under antitrust laws or administrative merger review processes in the last ten years, despite over 90 percent of MSAs [metropolitan statistical areas] having a highly concentrated hospital market.” Medicaid expansion has been found to improve hospital finances overall, but critical access hospitals face particular challenges with low operating margins. In their December paper, Paula Chatterjee and coauthors reported that critical access hospitals in Medicaid expansion states did not have statistically significant increases in operating margins, staffing levels, or quality measures relative to hospitals in nonexpansion states. Read the entire December issue here. Today on Health Affairs Blog, Lisa Grabert and
coauthors argue that although COVID-19 waivers of Medicare post-acute care rules have alleviated the patient burden for short-term acute care hospitals, they should not be extended indefinitely because of the unknown financial implications. Everette James and Meredith Hughes discuss spousal impoverishment protections, which are rooted in the belief that it is unconscionable to allow a spouse to be reduced to poverty to provide long-term care services to the other spouse. Katie Keith discusses two new lawsuits against the No Surprises Act that, if successful, would cause the federal independent dispute resolution system to become more costly and undermine the savings that Congress expected when the law was enacted. Advertise with Health Affairs this month to take advantage of our December promotion. Save $1,000: Bundle two branded posts and one weekly banner ad on the blog. Learn more about advertising opportunities here.
Jennifer Attonito On Lessons Learned From The COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout In Florida
Listen to Health Affairs Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil interview Jennifer Attonito from Florida Atlantic University on disparities in access to COVID-19 vaccines during the initial vaccine rollout in Florida.
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