N.Y. hospital's unusual outreach to patients saves money

Oct 8 2014

Montefiore saved $24 million last year and are part of the accountable care organization pilot projects set up by the health law. Also, in Texas, federal officials are withholding funds while they probe a Medicaid financing plan.

The Washington Post's Storyline blog: The Surprising Obamacare Experiment That Saved Taxpayers $24 Million Last Year
[Deirdre] Sekulic heads Montefiore's housing unit [in New York], which aims to find one-bedroom apartments for homeless patients who show up in the emergency room, again and again. The program is the only one of its kind in New York City. Montefiore is also an unexpected cost-saving offshoot of the Affordable Care Act -; and part of an experimental effort to treat health care as more than just medicine. The dual goal: Save lives, save money. The medical center is what's called a Pioneer Accountable Care Organization, one of 19 in the country. More simply: It's a network of doctors, nurses and social workers who team up to deliver continuous, coordinated care to patients -; and, in the process, slash government spending (Paquette, 10/6).

Texas Tribune: Feds Withholding $75M Over Hospital Funding Question
The federal agency that oversees Medicaid is reviewing arrangements between private Texas hospitals and local government entities to ensure they did not violate a rule that allowed the state to draw down federal dollars to cover health care for the uninsured. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is withholding $75 million that the state used to reimburse private hospitals for care they provided to poor patients without a means to pay. ... The federal government has withheld payments for would-be violations in Dallas, Forth Worth and Corpus Christi, but officials say they could freeze more money as they review practices elsewhere (Walters, 10/7).