March Update

ACA (Obamacare) Update March 2014

healthcare.gov

Sign-ups continue, although the “back room” functions are moving very slowly. Providers are struggling with verification problems and missing insurance cards. The deadline approaches.

Other Changing Policies

A huge number of policies in both the employer-paid sector and the individual policy sector changed as of January 1, creating more messes for patients and providers.

Moving individual policy holders into the exchange system has been a nightmare and will likely continue to be a nightmare for some time. Providers are struggling with a high percentage of patients presenting new insurance cards for both new carriers and the same carriers with different policies. Confusion reigns.

More Cash from Patients

The long term trend of “risk shift” - less coverage from employers and more out of pocket from patients – has been accelerated by Obamacare. This is impacting both patients and providers, and not for the better.

This creates numerous headaches for providers, who have enough headaches already.

Fall will be Interesting

With the ICD-10 adoption deadline October 1 and the EMR/EHR operational deadline January 1, 2015 the fall season will be stressful for providers.

Deadlines ….. don't mean much, it is the extended deadlines that are important.

Compliance programs … both nursing homes and physician groups are supposed to have mandatory compliance plans – except the regulations are not written yet. Stay tuned.

And so.... 2014 may be the single most stressful year in the history of our health care system – until 2015.