CMS has released the final requirements that hospitals and healthcare providers must meet to quality for incentives during stage 2 of the electronic health record incentive program.

How are today's accountable care organizations led and reimbursed? How many lives do they cover and what are the most common types of patient populations? What challenges do they face, and how long does it take, on average, to create an ACO?

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released its proposed physician payment rule, which cuts neurosurgery reimbursement by 1 percent in 2013, according to a North American Spine Society blog report.

National healthcare expenditures grew to $2.695 trillion in 2011, a 3.9 percent increase from $2.594 trillion in 2010, but what components of the healthcare system consumed the largest portions of NHE?

CMS has hired Figliozzi & Company of Garden City, N.Y., to perform the promised audits of Medicare providers and dual-eligible Medicare and Medicaid hospitals that have received federal electronic health record system incentive payments.

A total of $662 million in incentives were paid for both the Physician Quality Reporting System and e-Prescribing Incentive Programs in 2010, which represents a 72 percent increase since 2009, according to a CMIO report.

CMS and ONC have announced that the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Record Incentive Programs have paid more than 110,000 eligible professionals and 2,400 eligible hospitals a total of more than $5.7 billion.

At the 10th Annual Orthopedic, Spine and Pain Management-Driven ASC Conference in Chicago on June 16, Sandra Jones, MBA, MS, CASC, FHFMA, CEO and COO of ASD Management, discussed important considerations for lowering infection rates and improving clinical quality at ambulatory surgery centers.

In 2011, national healthcare expenditures only grew 3.9 percent due to the continued economic slog, which is similar to 2010, and the total 2011 national healthcare expenditure figure was $2.7 trillion compared with $2.59 trillion in 2010, according to CMS Office of the Actuary estimates released in Health Affairs.

The rate of registration by eligible professionals for the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Record incentive programs has dropped for the second straight month, according to a CMS report (pdf).