Word: payment
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...snapping up $1.4 million computed tomography (CT) scanners, which produce palpably detailed, 3-D pictures of bones and organs, and $2.2 million "high field" MRI machines that can watch the brain at work. The inflationary dynamic spawned by this expansion of health-care capacity exposes flaws in the payment system that sustains U.S. health care. Those flaws partly explain why Americans spend $2 trillion, or 16% of their GDP, for medical care, an outlay that's increasing roughly 7% annually...
...they build it, we'll fill it. The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission found that health-care markets with specialty hospitals have roughly 6% more cardiac surgeries and 9% more bypasses than markets without them. It's not that doctors deliberately push unnecessary surgery, but when a choice of treatments exists, capacity and monetary incentives have been known to influence the choices physicians make...
Congress and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have taken steps to rein in imaging. Beginning next year, imaging centers will see payment cuts that the industry and its manufacturing allies--GE, Siemens, Phillips--say will reduce some payments to 20% of the cost of doing them. To level the specialty-hospital playing field, CMS will pay hospitals more for their more complex cases. Similarly it proposes to pay ASCs at 62% the rate of hospital outpatient departments. The industry is asking for 75%. Lobbyists are racing to the scene...
...political clout. As do the manufacturers of medical technology. So creating a payment system that makes competition work as it ought to--reducing costs rather than inflating them--won't be easy. But the same can be said for living in a society that can't afford its sick and dying...
...That's what Azizi Bank's founders were forced to do when they opened in June. Islamic law prohibits the collection and payment of interest, making it difficult for banks to attract deposits from devout Muslims. Instead, Azizi launched a program they called Qismat (or "luck") Banking, in which customers opening new accounts are automatically entered in a lucky draw for cars, TVs, gold jewelry and other prizes. It may sound more like a lottery than a savings account, but no fees are charged, and customers can withdraw their money any time after three months. Since the program launched...