Headlines Archive for November 2011

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11/30

More States Move Closer to Health Insurance Exchanges

11/30

Should healthcare providers give patients access to their electronic health records and if so, how do they make that happen?

11/30

Hoping to alleviate concerns of states, the Obama administration on Tuesday said it would award nearly $220 million in new federal grants to states to set up exchanges

11/30

Remedy Health Media Acquires HealthCentral: Creates Industry-Leading Health Information and Technology Platform

11/29

IBM’s Watson May Add $2.65 Billion to 2015 Sales, Analyst Says

11/29

Managed-care company UnitedHealth Group Inc. is targeting long-term earnings growth in a double-digit range, backed by high single-digit sales growth, as it aims to expand its Optum health-care-services business.

11/29

Congress again faces ‘doc fix’ for Medicare – Jan. 1 deadline: Doctors face 27% cut in fees if nothing done

11/29

Some say the real savings are to be found through technology and the use of business intelligence.

11/29

Humana announces deal to buy chronic-care provider

11/28

McKesson in Three-Way Contest for VA Drug Contract

11/28

Obama’s Pick to Head Medicare and Medicaid Resigns Post

11/28

Blood thinners and diabetes drugs cause most emergency hospital visits for drug reactions among people over 65

11/28

Health plans have been very busy this year making acquisitions that will keep them in the center of the healthcare universe for years to come.

11/28

If ever there was a year in which “anything could happen” in healthcare, 2012 just might be it.

11/28

Hospitals throughout the Puget Sound region are in the midst of a boom, building spiffy new free-standing emergency rooms and entire hospital towers with expanded ERs

11/28

As the clock continues to tick down toward October 2013, when ICD-10 takes effect, hospital leaders are hopeful that the coding changes will result in improved quality of care.

11/28

Alere Inc. has acquired Arriva Medical, a leading provider of diabetes testing supplies to individuals in their homes.

11/28

Is There a Doctor Fix in the House….and Senate?

11/23

In the Annals of Emergency Medicine, several emergency physicians warn of the challenges of incorporating what ER docs do into new models that move away from the current fee-for-service payment to an episode-of-care approach

11/23

How Sequestration Will Reduce Health Care Spending

11/23

Informed Patient: Hospital Systems Move Into the Walk-In Market

11/22

Health Care Savings Bonanza: Docs Make House Calls

11/22

Disparities: In the E.R., the Elderly Get Less Pain Relief

11/22

At the Mall: New Clinics Let Patients Skip the ER

11/22

Under the negotiations that created the supercommittee, its failure to reach an agreement means automatic budget cuts worth $1.2 trillion, including a 2% reduction every year from 2013 to 2021 in the payments received by health-care providers for treating Medicare beneficiaries.

11/22

UnitedHealth Agrees to Acquire Medicare Managed-Care Insurer XLHealth

11/22

Patients, Too, Turn to the Internet for Fund-Raising

11/22

Super Committee Fail: Healthcare Companies Warn of Risks

11/21

The Department of Health and Human Services has denied Indiana’s and Louisiana’s requests for temporary relief from health reform’s medical loss ratio requirements, making them the third and fourth states to have their applications rejected outright

11/21

Cigna to Offer Health Insurance in India

11/21

Uninsured patients spend less time in the hospital than insured patients, according to a study that suggests that ability to pay plays a greater role than medical need when determining length of stay.

11/21

In-store medical clinics like those at Walmart – whose clinics treat healthy patients looking for convenient, low-cost care for simple problems – are eyeing a bigger prize, the millions of Americans with costly illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease.

11/21

After a subsequent flurry of counter-complaints, HRSA opened the “bad doc” the database to the public, but with so many restrictions on use of the database, some say it’s virtually useless as a tool 

11/21

Foster children are being prescribed cocktails of powerful antipsychosis drugs just as frequently as some of the most mentally disabled youngsters on Medicaid

11/21

Supreme Court Names Two Lawyers to Argue Points in Health Care Law

11/21

When it comes to addressing health care, the debate in the U.S. is just a drop in the global bucket. The developing world is facing a host of health-care challenges—whose economic effects reach all the way to America’s shores.

11/18

The Walmart Opportunity: Can Retailers Revamp Primary Care?

11/18

While there was no surprise over the Supreme Court’s decision Monday to review the 2010 health-care act’s insurance mandate, supporters of the law are reeling over the justices’ announcement that they will also consider a long-shot challenge to what many consider an even more central provision of the statute.

11/18

Quashing Access to Data, Feds Muddle Commitment to Transparency

11/18

The average per capita cost of healthcare services covered by commercial insurance grew by 8.03% over the 12 months ending in September, while costs for Medicare healthcare services grew by only 1.97% for the same period, Standard & Poor’s Healthcare Economic Indices show.

11/18

Medical device maker Medtronic Inc. said private-equity firm Bain Capital agreed to acquire its Physio-Control external defibrillator business in a deal valued at about $487 million.

11/17

Workers’ Health Coverage Premiums Climbed 63% in Seven Years, Study Shows

11/17

Tuesday morning the Optum Institute opened its doors with the mission to help kick-start what it calls sustainable health communities

11/17

SXC Health Solutions to Acquire HealthTrans

11/17

More and more employers are demanding that workers who smoke, are overweight or have high cholesterol shoulder a greater share of their health care costs

11/17

Medicaid will continue to be the solution of last resort for people who require nursing home care.

11/17

Hospitals that use a computerized medical-information tool to help doctors make decisions at the point of care have better patient outcomes than those who don’t, according to a new study in the Journal of Hospital Medicine.

11/17

Founded in 2011, PHG will serve as the platform upon which CEO Rob Radics and his experienced management team will build a home health and hospice company that will provide patients throughout the Southeast with best-in-class care.

11/16

A poll released Tuesday found that an overwhelming majority of doctors support palliative care, with 96 percent responding that they believe enhancing the quality of life for seriously ill patients

11/16

Patients with clogged leg arteries are better off exercising with the help of a therapist than having a doctor place a stent in their legs to improve blood flow, a study found.

11/16

As Barack Obama battled Hillary Rodham Clinton over health care during the Democratic presidential primaries of 2008, he was adamant about one thing: Americans, he insisted, should not be required to buy health insurance.

11/16

A consumer advocacy group is calling for full and unfettered public access to the National Practitioner Data Base to help patients identify problem doctors in their states.

11/16

Uninsured Americans tend to be discharged from the hospital somewhat sooner than those with health coverage, regardless of the medical condition itself, a new study finds.

11/16

Landlords to nursing homes are being sent to the sick house by investors who fear that deep cuts in Medicare spending will siphon off rent payments.

11/16

ObamaCare authorizes premium assistance in state-run exchanges but not federal ones. In other words, states that refuse to create an exchange can block much of ObamaCare’s spending and practically force Congress to reopen the law for revisions.

11/16

The latest figures from the National Venture Capital Association indicate that Silicon Valley venture capitalists are migrating out of healthcare and medical IT investments to focus on Internet-related deals

11/16

A former Vitas Healthcare Corp. manager has accused the hospice chain of defrauding the federal government by conspiring with health insurers to enroll Medicare patients who weren’t dying.

11/16

Deficit-reduction proposals to change the structure of Medicare would increase costs for most current beneficiaries, a new study has found.

11/16

An online personal wellness game created by Hartford, CT-based health insurer Aetna in partnership with Seattle-based social media company Mindbloom is engaging and engaging patients.

11/16

What will happen to the 30 million uninsured Americans the law intends to cover, will be up in the air if the mandate at the heart of the law — is struck down.

11/16

South Carolina’s top health official will recommend this week that the state decline creating its own health insurance exchange, one of the central tenets of President Barack Obama’s health care law.

11/15

Doctors who earn money for cardiac stress testing are much more likely to prescribe the tests than those who don’t, a new study has found.

11/15

Landauer, Inc. Announces Acquisition of IZI Medical Products, LLC

11/15

The Top 5 roadblocks HIEs face

11/15

Aetna Inc. will cut some co-payments on drugs aimed at preventing heart attacks after a study showed patients took their medicines and were healthier when there were no out-of- pocket costs for their treatments

11/15

In the scramble to come up with a deficit-reduction deal by Thanksgiving, members of Capitol Hill’s supercommittee appear to have one group squarely in their crosshairs: high-income Medicare beneficiaries.

11/15

Nearly Everything You Need to Know About the Health Care Decision

11/15

The Obama administration will announce Monday as much as $1 billion in funding to hire, train and deploy health-care workers

11/14

Today Millar Instruments, Inc. (Houston, TX) and Telemetry Research Ltd (Auckland, New Zealand) announce their merger. 

11/14

State Medicaid directors say the federal government’s focus on bureaucratic process measures has quashed innovation efforts in the Medicaid program and resulted in inefficiencies and duplications.

11/14

WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Aetna Inc. are weighing bids for XLHealth Corp., a provider of managed care for chronically ill Medicare members, said people familiar with the matter

11/14

A new study published on Monday shows patients are more likely to take their medicine when they do not have to help pay for the prescriptions.

11/14

Cardinal Health Canada has commenced its offer to acquire all of the outstanding common shares of Futuremed Healthcare Products Corporation

11/14

Retail Health Care Competition Heats Up

11/14

Diabetes will strike one in 10 adults by 2030, hampering economic growth in the world’s fastest-growing economies as it kills people in their most productive years

11/14

Health Law Puts Focus on Limits of Federal Power

11/14

Independent physician practices are slowly fading away, and with the advent of healthcare reform, the pace may be about to get much quicker.

11/14

For 2011, the survey found, 31% of covered workers had a plan with an annual deductible of $1,000 or more for a single person, up from 27% last year and 10% five years ago.

11/11

Millennium HealthCare Inc. completed its acquisition of Premier Technology Resources, a company specializing in medical billing, collection and software consulting and implementation services to the healthcare community.

11/11

Does Walmart aim to be a major player in the world of primary care health services – or not?

11/11

Senior Care Centers of America, Inc., a portfolio company of Clearview Capital, LLC, became the largest provider of adult day health services in the United States after merging with Active Day, Inc.,

11/11

5 Big Questions Before Supreme Court on Health Reform Law

11/11

By 2020, the retail health insurance market will include more than 100 million health shoppers wielding a whopping $500 billion in purchasing power

11/11

Federal officials are in the final stages of reviewing applications from Indiana, Florida, Louisiana and Michigan to determine if their medical loss ratio waiver requests will be approved.

11/11

Hospital Margins in Jeopardy as 5010, ICD-10 Deadlines Loom

11/11

Senate Investigates Lab Testing Billion Dollar Health Care Scam

11/9

Walmart — the nation’s largest retailer and biggest private employer – now wants to dominate a growing part of the health care market, offering a range of medical services from basic prevention to management of chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease

11/9

Doctors who own and bill for nuclear cardiac stress-test technology are twice as likely to order the procedure as those who aren’t paid for it, researchers said.

11/8

Starting next fall, the federal Medicare program will withhold 1% of a vital payment—as part of a program to improve the quality of care. Hospitals can earn additional payments by performing well on two measures: quality standards for medical care, and patient-satisfaction surveys.

11/8

There’s a lot of concern today that paying fees to medical providers for each service may lead to unnecessary care. But there’s no easy way to replace the massively complicated fee-for-service system.

11/8

How patient satisfaction scores reward rich hospitals

11/8

Test for Hospital Budgets: Are the Patients Pleased?

11/8

It wasn’t until informatics pros and clinicians figured out how to calculate and graphically present a spectrum of clinical status measures for immediate action that quality measures became worthwhile and patient-care results dramatically improved

11/8

As more businesses shift employees onto high-deductible, consumer-directed health plans, healthcare organizations may see even more bad debt.

11/8

Health Plans Step Into Retail Operations

11/8

Imperfect cancer screenings spark angst over how much and who they really help

11/8

A Hidden Toll as States Shift to Contract Workers

11/8

The New Poor: Elderly Hit Hard on Health Costs

11/7

The nation’s physician workforce anxiously awaits the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction recommendation to Congress on how to avoid the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula

11/7

The nation’s unemployment rate may fall faster in the future than many economists assume for one simple reason: The rapid aging of the American work force is helping reduce the share of the population hunting for jobs.

11/7

Apax Partners, CPPIB and PSP Investments Complete Acquisition of Kinetic Concepts, Inc.

11/7

Siemens Healthcare Enters into Definitive Agreement to Acquire Leading HIE Developer MobileMD, Inc.

11/7

CMS to Float Physician Reporting Rules on Pay from Drug, Device Firms

11/7

Health and Human Services has received thousands of comments on preliminary exchange regulations issued earlier this year

11/7

Increasing Medicare Age Could Lead To Higher Costs

11/7

States worried they’ll bear the brunt of anger over health law’s shortcomings

11/7

Health Guideline Panels Struggle with Conflicts of Interest

11/7

Health Investors’ New Calculus: Save Money To Make Money

11/4

Starting next year, for instance, Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private employer, will charge workers who smoke a penalty ranging from $260 to $2,340 annually on health insurance.

11/4

Will the Supreme Court Carve Up Obamacare? The court could find the “individual mandate” unconstitutional but leave the rest of the law intact

11/4

Wasted! $6.8 Billion on Needless Medical Tests

11/4

HealthGrades merges with monitoring firm CPM

11/4

Haven’t Started ICD-10? It May Already Be Too Late

11/3

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn on Thursday boosted his stake in WebMD Health Corp. (WBMD) to 9.5% by buying call options, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

11/3

A group of Medicare patients sued the Obama administration, saying they were deprived of coverage by the government health plan because of a policy that allows hospitals to avoid admitting elderly people with chronic ailments as inpatients.

11/3

The 2012 Outpatient Prospective Payment System final rule contains some significant wins, including changes to cancer center payments and separately payable drug payments

11/3

Shortage of cancer drugs tied to simple economics, experts say

11/2

Medicare payments for outpatient services will rise 1.9 percent to $41 billion and dialysis clinics, cancer centers and ambulatory surgery facilities also are scheduled to receive modest fee increases

11/2

An AmericanEHR Partners report reveals doctors need at least three to five days of EHR training, but nearly half (49.3%) receive three or fewer days

11/2

Though hospitals are eligible for billions of dollars in federal stimulus money to bring their facilities into the digital age to save money and improve the quality of health care, just one in 10 is ready to meet government standards

11/2

CRC Health Group, the nation’s largest network of behavioral health and addiction treatment services, today announced the successful acquisition of North Carolina’s Mountain Health Solutions outpatient treatment centers

11/2

President Obama signs an Executive Order directing the Food and Drug Administration to take action to help prevent and reduce prescription drug shortages

11/1

Medicare payments to home health agencies would fall by more than $400 million, or 2.3 percent, in 2012 under a U.S. regulation issued today.

11/1

A $5 billion fund created as part of the health-care overhaul to pay for health insurance for early retirees will run out of money by September 2012

11/1

As Nov. 23 and the devil’s bargain made last August approaches, Congress must come up with a $1.2 trillion deficit-reduction plan by Thanksgiving.

11/1

A lawsuit challenging Maine’s authority over health insurers’ profit margins is drawing national attention from state regulators worried about the impact on their power to hold down rate increases.

Vita Advisors, LLC is a research-based strategic advisory firm serving the health care industry.

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