The House failed to delay a 21% cut in physician Medicare reimbursements over concerns about the bill’s costs voiced by Republicans and some Democrats
With the growing number of CMS-approved RAC issues and the impending medical necessity audits on the horizon, the need for RAC tracking software rises daily for providers nationwide.
CDC officials said yesterday that central line-associated bloodstream infections dropped by 18% overall in 17 states that have mandatory reporting laws
The VA has taken a lead role in adopting telehealth strategies, achieving reductions in hospital admissions and shorter hospital stays for the telehealth populations
Intel announced at the World Congress for Information Technology that it will be expanding availability of the Intel® Health Guide in Europe
Ahh, but why use free government developed software when all the health IT companies on the planet have stuff that sells for around $40,000?
Federal health premiums will rise by an average of 7.4 percent in 2010, according to the Office of Personnel Management.
A Kaiser study found that through 2019, federal spending on Medicaid will increase by at least $443.5 billion while states will see an increase of only $21.1 billion
As their numbers have grown, from 800 in the 1990s to 30,000 today, medical experts have come to see hospitalists as potential leaders in the transition to the Obama administration’s health care reforms
The federal government will bear virtually the entire cost of expanding Medicaid under the new health-care law, according to a comprehensive new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation
Access HealthColumbus has assembled the three legs it needs to support conversion to a so-called medical home model starting in January at the nine offices encompassing 68 doctors.
Encryption should be mandatory for one-on-one exchanges between providers regarding treatments, a privacy/security workgroup for the ONC reported last week
Apollo Hospitals, Asia’s largest health care provider, and Cisco today announced an alliance to help transform health care by accelerating access to affordable and high-quality health care via the Cisco HealthPresenceTM Extended Reach technology
Medical Loss Ratio: The law requires that health insurers spend 85 percent of premiums on medical expenses for customers in the large group market and 80 percent for customers in the small and individual markets
Thirty-five percent of surveyed employees said they would consider dropping their employer-provided health insurance if they become eligible to purchase similar plans for a lower cost.
Guardian Analytics, the innovator in predictive analytics-based fraud prevention software, today announced that it has raised $9 million in funding, led by Sutter Hill Ventures with participation by existing investor Foundation Capital
Phreesia, the leading patient check-in company, announced today the close of a $16 million Series D investment
And a study published this year found that high caregiving strain among spouses increased the risk of strokes by 23 percent
In a blunt warning to the health insurance industry, the Obama administration said Monday it won’t hesitate to block mergers that threaten to stifle competition.
The Obama administration asked a federal judge Monday to dismiss Virginia’s challenge of the health-care overhaul law
A new Web-based tool seeks to help patients spend less time in the waiting room before seeing their doctor
John Doerr wasn’t too specific on the makeup of the “great third wave,” only that the next chapter of disruptive technology will be about people, places and relationships.
The rate of premature births declined for the second year in a row in 2008, the first two-year decrease in almost 30 years, the government reported this month.
State insurance regulators say they will need more time to produce their recommendation on an issue at the center of the debate over how U.S. health insurance companies spend their customers’ dollars.
Gentiva Health Services Inc. has agreed to acquire Odyssey HealthCare Inc. for nearly $1 billion, a combination that will create the largest U.S. home health and hospice provider.
On the table: two proposals to extend — once again — subsidies for COBRA health insurance and a “fix” of Medicare payments to doctors.
Now that Congress has imposed new requirements on health insurance plans, regulators are trying to resolve another big question: Which plans must comply with the requirements?
The rollout of the federal health-care overhaul continued Friday spelling out how small biotech companies can apply for grants and tax credits of up to $5 million each
About one-third of employers subject to major requirements of the new health care law may face tax penalties because they offer health insurance that could be considered unaffordable to some employees,
Occupational healthcare provider U.S. HealthWorks today announced the acquisition of Technimed Occupational Medicine and its two healthcare centers in Vernon, and Commerce, CA
General Electric Co. met the objectives it set for the first year of its so-called healthymagination initiative, including spending $700 million on research and development
Unlike RACs, MICs (Medicaid Integrity Program audits) have proceeded largely under the radar of many organizations. As a result, providers may be surprised and unprepared
Home health care generally costs less money than institutionalizing developmentally disabled people – but the political reality is that it’s easier to cut back home services
Millions of American workers could discover that they no longer have employer-provided health insurance because employers are quickly discovering that it may be cheaper to pay fines
The pharmaceutical industry lobby spent $7 million in the first quarter as it lobbied the federal government
The burden of aging baby boomers will rise sharply over the next two decades and then ease around 2030, according to a Census Bureau report released today.
The administration touted the small business tax credit had “broad eligibility” – lost in the fine print: the credit drops off sharply once a company gets above 10 workers and $25,000 average annual wages.
Joint Legislation to Create Jobs, Extend Tax Cuts for Families and Businesses, Support Americans Looking for Work
Lawmakers have agreed on legislation to extend expanded jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed through the end of the year
The cumulative care costs of Alzheimer’s disease over the next 40 years will exceed $20 trillion unless treatments to modify or delay onset of the incurable disease are discovered
Under the law, Congress gave Medicare leeway to give healthcare providers that hold back Medicare spending a share of any accountable care organization savings as long as they reach quality and cost-control targets.
Democrats Debating How To Handle Medicare ‘Doc Fix,’ COBRA Subsidy Extension
Spending on drugs for kids rose 10.8% last year, the most of any age group and nearly triple the 3.7% increase for the general population,
A House panel is investigating personal genetic test kits currently sold over the Internet after one company proposed selling its kits through stores
The average manufacturer price increases for popular name brand and specialty prescription drugs used by Medicare beneficiaries rose faster than other consumer goods and services in the 12 months ending March 2010
Accretive Health Inc. cut the size of its initial public offerings by as much as 44 percent as the IPO market’s May slump deepened
Healthcare company 1Life Healthcare has secured $15 million in its latest round of venture capital financing.
CMS is sharing savings with 166 Home Health Agencies (HHA) based on their performance during the first year of the Medicare Home Health Pay for Performance (HHP4P) demonstration.
AMA argues the proposed fix to the Medicare payment system for physicians doesn’t address the program’s solvency issues and only pushes the problem five years down the road
Medco is expanding its efforts to promote so-called pharmacogenomic tests—assays that can signal how a person will react to a drug or can help decide what medicine, or what dose, is best
This year’s incoming freshmen at the University of California, Berkeley, will get something quite different: a cotton swab on which they can, if they choose, send in a DNA sample
Newly licensed doctors enlisting to treat the state’s Medicaid and Medicare patients are more likely to have been trained at international medical schools, according to a review of state medical licensing data
Until recently, Provo seemed to be a model for the nation. But spending on Medicare patients here has accelerated rapidly, as it has in many other areas of the country also known for cost-efficient care
Two Tiered Medical Care for Haves and Have Nots – As doctors leave the system, patients scramble to find care
“A small but growing number of physicians are … abandoning traditional insurance-based practice to offer VIP treatment
A Stanford University study shows that small amounts of social support can produce large and lasting gains against one of America’s biggest health problems—physical inactivity
Health-industry groups including the AMA and American Hospital Association are calling the digitization requirements “too much, too soon”
The number of children hospitalized with dangerous drug-resistant staph infections surged 10-fold in recent years, a study found.
One of the few remaining ways to manage expenses is to reduce the actual cost of the products. In health care, this means pushing providers to accept lower fees and reduce their use of costly services
Among the first to feel the effects of the nation’s health-care system overhaul are insurance salespeople, whose commissions for selling policies to individuals and small groups are themselves getting overhauled
Some 57 million Americans — 1 in 5 people under 65 — have diagnoses that could lock them out of coverage, according to a report issued this month by the advocacy group Families USA
Video: Dr. Jim Yong Kim, president of Dartmouth College, talks with Bloomberg News about the goals of the new Dartmouth Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery
Insurers led by UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Humana Inc. may share in an estimated $2.5 billion in yearly bonuses if their U.S-backed Medicare plans rate four or five stars
Inverness Medical Innovations, Inc., a global leader in enabling individuals to take charge of their health at home through the merger of rapid diagnostics and health management, announced that it will change its name to Alere Inc.
Virtual Radiologic Corporation and Providence Equity Partners today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Providence will acquire all of the outstanding common stock of vRad for $17.25 per share in cash
Companies are getting serious about improving the health of their employees—and they’re now using both carrots and sticks to get results.
State and federal officials are wrestling with how to define “unreasonable” premium increases, a thorny issue Congress has handed regulators
Informed consent has long been a bedrock principle of medical ethics, but the form intended to document a patient’s understanding of a proposed intervention is too often written at a college reading level
The U.S. health-care overhaul could help hospitals cut costs for high-priced medical devices, raising a long-term risk for manufacturers already facing some pressure on product prices.
The share of Americans who get health coverage through their jobs has been declining gradually for years, dropping to 63.3% of working-age adults in 2008.
Health insurance companies are lobbying federal and state officials in an effort to ward off strict regulation of premiums and profits under the new health care law
Universal Health Services Inc. agreed to buy Psychiatric Solutions Inc. for about $2 billion, ending a weekend bidding war with Bain Capital LLC
WHY EVIDENCE-BASED MEDICINE ONLY SEEMS SIMPLE: The evidence isn’t always stellar // Guidelines don’t account for patient differences // Experts often disagree about the facts
Gene-test kits that promise to tell consumers their risk of Alzheimer’s disease, breast cancer and numerous illnesses must be approved by regulators
Healthscope Ltd., Australia’s second- largest hospital owner, received a buyout offer from a private equity group valuing the company at about $1.6 billion
Attorneys general and governors for 20 states won’t be alone in their legal challenge to health care overhaul – the nation’s most influential small business lobby is going to court with them.
The proposal by the Hospital Association of Southern California to create a joint medical foundation is just one sign of the growing alignment between doctors and hospitals, an accelerating trend
Republicans have opened an assault on the nomination of Harvard professor Donald Berwick to lead the huge agency that runs Medicare and Medicaid, calling Berwick an advocate for “rationing’’ health care.
Shares of four home health care providers tumbled after the Senate Finance Committee raised questions about patient visits to deliberately trigger higher Medicare reimbursements
Medicine’s makers cut U.S. tax bills by a technique known as transfer pricing, a method that carves billions a year from the U.S. Treasury
The Senate Finance Committee launched an investigation into the practices of Amedisys Inc. and three other companies that provide in-home therapy visits reimbursed by Medicare.
Microscopic robots made from DNA molecules can walk, follow instructions and work together to assemble simple products on an atomic-scale assembly line, mimicking the machinery of living cells
The government says it recovered $2.5 billion in overpayments for the Medicare trust fund last year as the administration focused attention on fraud enforcement in the health care industry.
The likelihood that patients in the United States may some day receive heart defibrillators that can operate without electrical wires connected to their hearts has moved a step closer
A tiny silicon chip that works a bit like a nose may one day detect dangerous airborne chemicals and alert emergency responders through the cell phone network
Critics who claim that Congress violated the U.S. Constitution by requiring Americans to carry health insurance are “flatly wrong,” the Obama administration said
Cheerios are among the foods that should be held to the same scientific standards as pharmaceuticals when promoted as having health benefits, a report ordered by U.S. regulators said today.
Walgreen Co. shoppers won’t see personal gene tests on the drugstore chain’s shelves tomorrow as planned after U.S. regulators said they need to review the test kits made by Pathway Genomics.
Publishing the cost and quality data has had a far-reaching impact – it gave hospitals with low quality ratings or high costs objective feedback for improving their performance
Starting in 2014, employers can offer workers rewards worth up to 30 percent to 50 percent of their cost of health coverage for participating in a wellness program and meeting health benchmarks
The health reform law establishes the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation in 2011, appropriating $15 billion for the office over the next 10 years- the center is tasked with testing new payment and delivery systems
Three US hospitals are now depending on a new trend in health IT to help them overcome a clinician shortage in rural areas: electronic intensive care units.
Walgreen said on Tuesday it plans to start stocking gene testing kits but the FDA says it has no record that the test kit was approved or validated by the agency and plans to take a hard look at any claims made by the company
Efforts to block a key provision of the new health-care overhaul law are underway in 33 states
White House Task Force report on Childhood Obesity lays out 70 recommendations and a gentle warning that, while the federal government can’t solve the obesity epidemic, it is prepared to take action where others don’t
President Obama’s new health care law could potentially add at least $115 billion more to government health care spending over the next 10 years, congressional budget analysts said Tuesday
CardioMEMS Inc. said it has raised a $37.5 million funding round to complete a clinical trial for its wireless sensing device for heart failure.
Intuit, best known for its Quicken product line, is buying medical records technology firm Medfusion in an all-cash deal valued at $91 million
Doctors are using a host of new therapies to treat patients with chronic pain
With a physician shortage looming, in 2006 the AMA Colleges set a goal of boosting first-year med school enrollment by 30% by 2015 - it’s going to miss that target by a few years
Prompted by media reports questioning the safety of such drugs, known as bisphosphonates, the FDA issued an alert in March about an ongoing safety review of them.
The debate has focused attention on Obama’s plan to rescind a federal regulation that protects workers who refuse to provide care they find objectionable
WellPoint CEO Angela Braly has told President Obama attacks on health insurers “must end” in order to make the new health care reform law work
Despite the health care law’s elaborate scaffolding, attorneys general and governors from 20 states, have now joined as confident litigants in a bid to topple its central pillar.
Overeating is more fattening for people who have a close relative with diabetes, a study found.
Walgreen Co. will become the first U.S. retailer to sell test kits, for $30, that promise customers information about their risk for developing diseases and passing conditions to their unborn children
Hospitals can slow the revolving door that shuttles heart failure patients back into bed within a month of going home by following up promptly to ensure patients get the right outpatient care, a study shows.
Realizing that it’s difficult for employers to turn on a dime, legislators included a “grandfather” provision in the health-care overhaul law – but what qualifies as a grandfathered plan
The new health law gives states frontline responsibility for setting up an untried system of “exchanges” – this program is highly coercive and raises a constitutional problems
Starting later this year, the health care law requires insurers to accept all children regardless of medical history – but the law doesn’t limit what the companies can charge
Pharmaceutical services provider InVentiv Health Inc said it agreed to be acquired by private equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners for about $1.1 billion.
The cost of treating cancer in the United States nearly doubled over the past two decades, but expensive cancer drugs may not be the main reason why, according to a surprising new study.
The Social Security system is so overwhelmed by applications for disability benefits that many people are waiting more than two years for their first payment
A huge fight has erupted over rules issued by the Obama administration to enforce a 2008 law that requires equal insurance coverage for the treatment of mental and physical illnesses.
It’s a simple question, but one with a complex answer: In health insurance, what counts as a medical expense?
The American Medical Association is putting the doctors of America on notice – major cheerleader for ObamaCare, the organization is now trying to silence doctors who oppose it
The morbidly obese—that is to say those with a BMI of more than 40, have increased in America by more than six times since 1960, and three times since 1990. They are now about 6% of adults.
The government’s 240-page report, published online Thursday by the President’s Cancer Panel, says the proportion of cancer cases caused by environmental exposures has been “grossly underestimated.”
Eighteen states have officially declined to participate in the new high-risk insurance pools: Why would any state want to participate?
The massively disruptive reorganization of health insurance by the federal government is about to collide with state budgets, causing much collateral damage nationwide.
eHealthInsurance.com and eHealthMedicare.com, today announced that it has acquired privately-held PlanPrescriber, Inc. for approximately $28.7 million in cash
President Obama signed legislation Wednesday that significantly expands health services available to veterans
Obamacare is a series of assignments to bureaucrats in the Department of Health and Human Services. It is emblematic of what scholars call the administrative state
Next spring we get the official report on how the nation collectively fared in reaching the goals included in Healthy People 2010, an every-decade governmental assessment of various health indicators.
Pay-for-performance programs could increase medical disparities experienced by racial and ethnic minorities and people of low socioeconomic status
Where did this entitlement thinking come from? Only a generation ago, everyone expected to pay his or her own medical bills.
The mandated MLR may help facilitate tacit price collusion among health insurers by setting a common cost upon which a similar markup rate can be applied to determine premiums.
The CLASS ACT underwent a number of changes during the health care debate – but here are some answers to some basic questions
The Obama administration is urging state regulators and lawmakers to investigate whether WellPoint made mathematical errors in justifying sharp rate increases around the country.
Health policy experts hope that electronic medical records becomes a tool for educating doctors about costs by providing doctors the price of tests and drugs when they are ordered
A series of novel imaging agents could light up tumors as they begin to form – before they turn deadly – and signal their transition to aggressive cancers
Accretive Health, Inc., a provider of healthcare revenue cycle management services, amended its Form S-1 registration statement – updates estimated pricing initial public offering of common stock
Scientists are puzzling over an unexplained increase in stomach cancer in young white adults, even as a new study shows that rates in all other American adults have declined.
To be accredited, medical schools and hospital residency programs, in which doctors spend three to five years learning a specialty, are supposed to be teaching future doctors about health care costs and cost-effective practices.
Specialists like cardiologists earn twice as much, on average, as primary care physicians over the course of a career
Companies will get $5 billion from the U.S. government to help pay for retiree health insurance, a benefit of the health-care overhaul that will offset some of the millions of dollars in costs employers
Intermedix Corporation, the leading provider of technology-based business services to emergency healthcare service providers, announced today the acquisition of EMSystems
A new initiative that includes groups such as the CDC, YMCA, American Cancer Society and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is trying to take a 360-degree approach to promoting exercise
In theory, a computerized system to send doctors’ orders directly to those who carry them out is supposed to save lives. In practice, that’s been harder to show.
Doctors are turning to genetic testing in an effort to identify and prevent heart problems in patients who seem healthy but may be at risk because of a family history of heart diseases.
Premier has launched an $86 million to expand the data foundation needed to support new models of health care delivery that encompass both acute and non-acute care settings, including ACOs
MinuteClinic and the hospital provider Catholic Healthcare West will collaborate to enhance the high quality, affordable health care services they provide in Phoenix communities
General acute-care beds in the state rose slightly, from 83% of all beds in 2001 to 87% in 2007, but skilled-nursing beds fell from 11% to 9%
If the FDA does shut down the Avandia safety trial, the move would effectively be a vote of no-confidence in a drug it approved a decade ago as a safer way to control diabetes
Obesity is associated to so many expensive diseases that the costs of treating the impoverished obese is unlikely to make this sector more employable, and therefore will not have an economic benefit
State online drug database attempt to thwart addicts who bounce from doctor to doctor to feed a habit or make a small fortune peddling meds
Electronic medical orders may save lives: Hospital witnessed a 20-percent drop in mortality rate, the equivalent of 36 fewer deaths over a year and a half.
Vita Advisors, LLC is a research-based strategic advisory firm serving the health care industry.
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