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It’s going to only get worse over the next two weeks – not only because April 15 is approaching, but also because this year brought new reporting requirements under President Obama’s healthcare law. “This really looks like a perfect storm,” Brookings Institution scholar Elaine Kamarck warns. “We face a terrible combination: the addition of new forms for ACA [the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare] and the subtraction of IRS capacity to help.” And those new forms are – like many IRS forms -- daunting. (Doyle McManus, 4/1)

Successful Medicare payment reform could transform health care delivery, but missteps could set back meaningful change for the foreseeable future. Clinicians, hospitals, and other providers need Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurers all pulling in the same direction so that they avoid a situation (beyond a transition period) in which a large proportion of their patients is under a fee-for-service (FFS) payment system and a large share under reformed payment approaches—leaving them, figuratively, as many have pointed out, standing with each leg in a separate boat. So payment reform will not succeed without success by Medicare. (Paul B. Ginsburg, 4/1)

Speak the words “dementia” and “nursing home,” and you’ve exposed two great fears among people in developed countries, where living until 80 or 90 is increasingly common. Despite efforts to keep frail elders in their own homes, increasing numbers of people with dementia are likely to spend time in a nursing home. There is widespread fear about nursing home care, which in many cases is warranted. However, there are national efforts to change nursing home culture, and many facilities have made strides in creating homelike environments .... We need to examine what works in the best nursing homes and apply their methods to all facilities. (Mary Ersek, 4/1)

An agreement announced Monday by the New York State attorney general and GNC, the nation’s largest specialty retailer of dietary supplements, should provide protection against fraudulent herbal products that don’t contain the ingredients listed on their labels or contain unlisted ingredients that are potentially dangerous. (4/1)

Alaska's hospitals face considerable economic risk if we opt out of Medicaid expansion, and thousands of Alaskans remain without basic coverage. As president of the Greater Fairbanks Community Hospital Foundation, I support the expansion of coverage because it makes good economic sense and it is vital to Alaska hospitals' collective mission of improving their communities' health. Patients without coverage often have no alternative but the emergency room for basic care. So Alaska's hospitals often treat complex, chronic conditions -- at great economic and social cost -- because the uninsured are often forced to delay what could have been inexpensive treatment. (Jeff Cook, 4/1)

The U.S. Supreme Court has severely limited the ability of healthcare providers to sue state Medicaid agencies over the adequacy of rates. But in handing down that decision Tuesday, the high court seemed to flatly contradict itself on the power of the feds to tell states how to run their Medicaid programs. (Harris Meyer, 3/31)