Citi believes the FMCSA will shortly make changes to its guidelines for medical examiners to screen all interstate truckers with a BMI over 35 for obstructive sleep apnea
UnitedHealthcare buys Preferred Care, Medica HMOs
About $36 billion could be shaved off the nation’s healthcare tab each year if the cost for 300 common procedures covered under employer-based insurance plans were reduced to their median prices, according to research from Thomson Reuters Healthcare.
A Bike Built for a Virtual-Reality Brain Boost
Five hospitals are the first in the nation to receive The Joint Commission’s advanced certification for palliative care
The AMA — the largest lobbying group representing doctors — said the IPAB is the wrong way to control healthcare costs.
Inflating the Deficit with Futile Health Therapies
Coming To A Strip Mall Near You, A Health Insurance Store
Alere Inc. announced that it has entered into a binding agreement to purchase eScreen Inc., a technology firm that specializes in toxicology screening and employee health products and services.The base purchase price is $270 million cash
The Food and Drug Administration’s top medical-device regulator said the agency needs more power to block unsafe products
Millions of dollars continue to flow from Washington, DC, to communities across the country in the form of grants to so-called Beacon Communities
The long-anticipated proposed rules for meaningful use Stage 2 were released late Thursday by the Department of Health and Human Services.
To appreciate the complexity of the U.S. healthcare system, consider the case of five hypothetical patients in the same hospital, all with the same illness, all receiving the same treatment from doctors and nurses.
States are lagging in the creation of health insurance exchanges, the supermarkets where millions of consumers are supposed to buy subsidized private coverage under President Obama’s health care overhaul.
The federal government released its much-awaited Stage 2 guidelines on meaningful use of electronic health records
Medical costs for enrollees in the health-care law’s high-risk insurance pools are expected to more than double initial predictions, the Obama administration said Thursday in a report on the new program.
Hospitals Face More Tests to Access U.S. Medical Records Grants
Experts say deep, complex causes of obesity may be beyond reach of weight loss drugs
Faced with soaring health care costs and shrinking Medicare and Medicaid financing, nursing home operators are closing some facilities and embracing an emerging model of care that allows many elderly patients to remain in their homes
HCP Completes Acquisition of Career Training Academy, Inc.
The fate of President Barack Obama’s health-care law may hinge on the administration’s ability to enlist an unlikely ally: Justice Antonin Scalia
California health insurers to raise average rates 8% to 14%
Report Affirms Lifesaving Role of Colonoscopy
The effort to drag the health-care industry into the technology age trudges onward, and it’s still not clear whether the nation’s 500,000 to 600,000 physicians will successfully make the journey
Seven organizations will receive a total of $639 million in federal low-interest loans to launch new, consumer-governed health insurance plans in eight states
US Healthcare Costs Grew 5.28% in 2011
The Supreme Court on Tuesday allotted an extra 30 minutes to oral arguments on the health care reform law
International Education Corp Acquires Emergency Training Services
Bill to require drug testing of Va welfare recipients sent to panel that delayed similar bill
Critical Alert Systems Acquires Intego Systems, Leading Provider of Nurse Call and Workflow Solutions to the Healthcare Industry
12 state AGs back Medicaid increase in SCOTUS brief
The number of suburban residents enrolled in Medicaid has skyrocketed in recent years, even as Gov. Pat Quinn takes aim at funding for the health care program for the poor.
Doctors, hospitals, and other healthcare providers have so far received $3.12 billion in incentive payments for adopting meaningful use measures for health information technology
Odyssey Hospice, now a part of Gentiva Health Services, Inc., announced that it has entered into a settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Thursday that the federal government will delay for an unspecified time the implementation date for the ICD-10 diagnostic and procedural coding system.
States strike at ‘Obamacare,’ seek to exempt insurers, employers from birth-control coverage
Congress has passed a legislative package that would delay massive Medicare reimbursement cuts for physicians for 10 months. The deadline to resolve the sustainable growth rate formula issue is now postponed until the end of 2012.
New GOP Medicare plan promotes private insurance, raises eligibility age, increases premiums
Federal health officials on Thursday said some health plan enrollees will soon start receiving rebates amounting to about $323 million for the first year.
Next time you go to an emergency room, you should be prepared for this: If your problem isn’t urgent, you may have to pay upfront.
A company has developed an experimental, implantable microchip to deliver drugs that one day may serve as a replacement for painful shots.
The impact of the Affordable Care Act in one map
A Supreme Court decision upholding the health-care law would give Congress the power to make Americans purchase any other product, said lawyers challenging the measure.
Video: Analyzing The Likely High Court Arguments On The Health Law
The administration announced the compromise plan before it had figured out how to address one conspicuous point: Like most large employers, many religiously affiliated organizations choose to insure themselves rather than hire an outside company to assume the risk.
RAND: High Cost to Getting Rid of ACA Mandate
Reid will allow vote on repeal of administration’s birth control mandate
Under ObamaCare, a single committee—the United States Preventative Services Task Force—is empowered to evaluate preventive health services and decide which will be covered by health-insurance plans.
Signals that federal officials might “re-examine the pace” of next year’s implementation dates for ICD-10 are bringing mostly favorable reactions from healthcare providers.
Medical venture capitalists used to try cut their financing risk by recruiting several investors into funding rounds, but the challenge of keeping large syndicates together is causing some to rethink this approach.
UnitedHealth Unveils Patient Info Service for MDs
Medicare Targeted for Cuts Under HHS Budget
Proposed Doc Fix Would Slash $27B from Hospitals, ACA
What’s Behind the Medicare Increase?
Patient satisfaction is costly but maybe not so healthy
Health-care investor Linden is taking SeraCare Life Sciences into private practice. Linden has agreed to pay about $82 million to acquire the Nasdaq-listed provider of products and services used in the discovery, development and production of human diagnostics and therapeutics.
High-risk insurance pools short on enrollees
The Future of High-Tech Health Care — and the Challenge
SeraCare Life Sciences Inc. announced Monday that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by an affiliate of Linden Capital Partners, a Chicago-based private equity firm
Success of health reform hinges on hiring 30,000 primary care doctors by 2015
Centene executives and analysts peer into a digital dashboard, hunting for spikes in health care usage — and costs.
Private equity backed NaviHealth has acquired SeniorMetrix, a Nashville-based provider of data-driven clinical decision-support solutions to the post-acute healthcare markets.
Medicare is getting into the screening business in a bigger way. And that’s good news for beneficiaries.
Avadyne Health, the Illinois-based provider of outsourcing for patient-centric revenue management services, will merge with Benchmark Revenue Management, a provider of similar services for hospitals
Concentra Acquires Chicago-Area Primary Care Practice
A growing number of healthcare organizations are putting the personal trainer method to work for patients in the form of a health coach.
UnitedHealth Group Inc., the largest U.S. health insurer by sales, will pay doctors based on the quality of their care in a cost-cutting effort that also benefits the company’s consulting business.
The Future of mHealth: Healthcare Apps to Lower Insurance Costs
The final 2012 Medicare physician payment rule from CMS includes an adjusted fee schedule for the Geographic Practice Cost Index (GPCI) that some industry leaders say is a great deal more fair to many physicians.
FDA Outlines Path for Lower-Priced Biotech Drugs
HHS Unveils Requirements For Consumer Insurance Labels
Consumers to Receive Health Coverage Explanation Under Adopted U.S. Rules
Payment Cuts to Critical Access Hospitals ‘Inevitable’
The Commonwealth Fund has announced an ambitious effort to track a fixed group of low- and moderate-income adults over the next two years to see how this population fares in terms of medical care and health insurance
Fitness Industry Dream Team Gains Muscle Mass With Latest Venture
Minnesota Plans For Exchange, Even Without New Law
State Medicaid program to stop paying for unneeded ER visits
Platinum Equity, the L.A.-based private equity firm, is buying medical imaging equipment seller and distributor DMS Health Technologies from its parent company, Otter Tail Corporation.
The country is being exposed to the raw political control that is the core of the Obama health-care plan, and Americans are seeing clearly for the first time how this will violate pluralism and liberty.
Uniting Industry Leaders in Hospital Revenue Cycle Technology and Revenue Recovery Services
House and Senate negotiators are deadlocked over how to prevent a deep cut in Medicare payments to doctors who treat millions of Medicare beneficiaries, an impasse that could threaten broader legislation on a payroll tax cut.
The Obama administration blocked an effort by California to charge Medicaid patients for emergency room visits and hospital stays and allow health-care providers to turn away those who couldn’t pay.
Advocates for health insurance reform are taking a dim view of a draft proposal for Pennsylvania’s health insurance exchange, saying it could keep the playing field tilted in favor of insurance companies and against consumers.
Start-Ups On IPO Waiting List Keep Close Eye On Facebook
2 Tactics for ICD-10 & VBP Clinical Documentation
Hospitals Mine Their Patients’ Records In Search Of Customers
Young doctors flock toward new specialty in end-of-life care
State prison officials are poised for the first time in 18 years to contract directly with someone other than a state university to provide medical care for Texas convicts.
Healthcare Continues Strong Job Growth
Some Medicare beneficiaries who visit the hospital are getting surprised by big bills because their stays weren’t considered inpatient services.
Lumosity takes brain games to a new level
Medicare Advantage plans are having tremendous success, with reduction in premiums amounting to 7%, an expansion of choices, and a 10% increase in enrollment from a year ago
Much of the projected future job growth – more than 2 million positions – will come from low-paid openings for home health aides (mean annual wages of $21,760) personal care aides — people who look after the elderly and infirm
More than 430 hospices, almost all of them for-profits, exceeded the cap in 2009 — an increase of almost 50 percent since 2006, according to Medpac.
For discharges in July, 2011 patients’ responses were 0.7 % better than they were in June according to Press Ganey Associates, which distributes and analyzes patient responses to the 27 HCAHPS survey. This which was double what Press Ganey expected.
To an economist it is astonishing that Americans have been content for so long to allow an economic sector that has absorbed an increasing portion of their incomes to operate without any meaningful price transparency
Health Care’s Jobs Boom – Baby boomers are turning 65, and they will need lots of help
Some hospitals pay thousands of dollars more than others for big-ticket medical devices such as defibrillators and hip replacements
Announced cross-border M&A flows fell to just below $30 billion in January, which is the lowest total for nineteen months.
A senior Senate Republican has launched an investigation into the Food and Drug Administration’s secret e-mail monitoring of scientists who warned that unsafe medical devices were approved over their objections
Robert Zirkelbach, spokesman for America’s Health Insurance Plans, warns that the biggest impact of the health law on Medicare Advantage won’t hit for another couple of years.
Patient Loyalty Programs Show Their True Value
Boehner: Feds should back off order for many religious employers to cover contraception
President Barack Obama and his senior aides were more than a little concerned before he announced his controversial decision requiring Catholic hospitals and universities to provide contraception in employee health plans.
States Under Pressure As Health Law Deadlines Approach
Medical device makers will double the fees they pay U.S. regulators to get their products reviewed over the next five years
We create the illusion of actuarial insurance, when the truth is that all major American health care institutions have been socialized for decades.
Government spending for Medicare, Medicaid and other healthcare programs will more than double over the next decade to $1.8 trillion
The nursing home industry is facing some stiff funding reductions, and an industry trade group has come up with a proposal to help Congress cut Medicare spending while shielding nursing homes.
Vita Advisors, LLC is a research-based strategic advisory firm serving the health care industry.
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