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Medicaid managed care is expanding throughout the United States. Iowa is going through a request-for-proposal process, and Kentucky is rebidding its contracts after switching over to managed care in 2011.

A treatment approved for the most common form of hepatitis C in the US was also highly effective in less widespread variants, researchers reported at the European Association for the Study of the Liver annual meeting.

The study found that despite an increase in the armamentarium of drugs to treat multiple sclerosis, the cost of the drugs has skyrocketed and not dropped.

While brachytherapy improved progression-free survival in men with prostate cancer, compared with traditional readiotherapy, the study found that overall survival was not very different between the 2 groups.

The use of a tiered network was associated with the increased use of hospitals on the preferred and middle tiers for planned hospital admissions compared with the nonpreferred tier, according to a paper in Health Services Research.

The federal government's review of how much money it spends to help pay for the hospital costs of low-income people in Tennessee and other states that didn't expand Medicaid feels like a threat to Governor Bill Haslam.

Remote monitoring for heart failure patients resulted in fewer hospitalizations and deaths than a similar group of patients receiving usual care during a 4-month study, but the benefits didn't last beyond the study period.

Satisfaction with the Health Insurance Marketplace exchange enrollment process among new enrollees has significantly increased from 2014.

Patients with multiple long-term health conditions are more likely to report poorer experiences in primary care than those with fewer health problems, according to recent findings by researchers from the University of Cambridge and RAND Europe.

States increasingly use managed care for Medicaid enrollees, yet evidence of its impact on healthcare outcomes is mixed. This research studies county-level Medicaid managed care penetration and healthcare outcomes among nonelderly disabled and nondisabled enrollees.

A new report from the Government Accountability Office found that CMS could use electronically readable cards in Medicare for a number of different purposes.

A one-minute look at managed care news during the week of April 20, 2015, including the how payment reform could hurt emergency care and Americans want the government to do something about high drug prices.

Researchers from the University of Washington examined drinking patterns down to the county level, and found wide disparities within state borders. This suggests that solutions to problem drinking must be found locally.

The survey, conducted at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and published in the Annals of Surgery, found that half of women with cancer in 1 breast are interested in removing their healthy breast to avoid a second cancer.

Nearly all doctors reported barriers to conducting effective end-of-life conversations with patients, and most felt that it was especially difficult to discuss with patients of a different ethnicity, according to researchers from Stanford University School of Medicine.

For all their talk about evidence-based medicine, a lot of doctors don't follow the clinical guidelines set by leading medical groups.

CMS wasted nearly $251 million in taxpayer dollars on infusion drugs in just 18 months by using outdated drug pricing estimates, which drove up the cost of prescription injectable drugs for an aging baby boomer population.

Avalere, partnering with the National Comprehensive Care Network, surveyed 20 cancer centers and found that 75% of respondents were covered by at least "some" of the exchange plans in their state.

Pharmaceutical companies can expect accelerated drug development by using alternate endpoints instead of the gold standard of OS and PFS for oncology molecules.

The monoclonal antibody MPDL3280A, a PD-L1 inhibitor being developed by Genentech, generated pharmacodynamic responses as measured by circulating biomarkers in phase 1a studies in patients with triple negative breast cancer.

Vivek Murthy, MD, MBA, who took office as US Surgeon General in December and has a ceremonial swearing-in Thursday, says he hopes to reduce chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease by promoting physical activity.

Hospital patients felt an increased financial burden in 2014 due to a combination of rising procedure costs and higher deductibles, according to TransUnion Healthcare's Q4 2014 report.

Nursing home operators are asking legislators for a "carve out" from the state's managed care plan. The AARP says this will retain a system that keeps state funds way from caring for the elderly in their homes, which most Louisiana residents prefer.

Results presented at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2015 show the presence of a known driver of non-small cell lung cancer in small cell lung cancer, implying that promising treatments for the former may be applicable to the latter form of the disease.

Oncologists are slightly less satisfied with their specialty than they were a few years ago, according to the fifth consecutive annual Medscape report.

Being admitted to the hospital on the weekend is associated with an increased likelihood of a hospital-acquired condition, which in turn increases cost and length of stay, reported researchers from the University of Southern California.

The diabetes drug metformin is being used in some cancer treatment trials, but study results show the use of metformin does not improve survival of patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.

The FDA is offering a grant of up to $1 million to turn large amounts of electronic health record data into usable figures highlighting postmarket risks of various drugs.

The system lets consumers pay cash at store register, while clerks scan bar codes sent to their cell phones. The system replaces these consumers sending in money orders each month.

The incidence rate for heart failure dropped steeply over a decade in a population-based study, and while hospitalization rates remained steady over time, causes shifted from cardiovascular to noncardiovascular.