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Nationwide, health systems, including hospitals and accountable care organizations (ACOs), are increasingly expanding their provider networks to include more physician groups.

It's a simple idea, but a radical one. Let people know in advance how much health care will cost them-and whether they can find a better deal somewhere else.

Federal officials issued the first set of voluntary standards under a new process that will give companies that develop electronic health-record systems more notice about what requirements will be included in the federal rules governing their products.

Medicare is proposing a small cut in Medicare Advantage rates for 2015, less than half of what private insurers were expecting from the federal agency. The final rule will be released April 7.

It is always important to remember that healthcare and health insurance are two very different things, and neither of them is a guarantee of good health.

Congress should extend funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program because millions of lower-income children could lose coverage if the program ends next year, members of the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission said Thursday.

A 4-year study assessing the impact of early outpatient palliative care versus standard oncology care in a variety of advanced cancers found promising results. The researchers observed that when palliative care teams collaborated earlier in the course of illness, it improved patients' quality of life and satisfaction.

Belgian cancer testing group MDxHealth recently announced an agreement with US health organization Prime Health Services to extend access to its prostate cancer test to 144 million insured people. MDxHealth suggests that collaboration will permit faster reimbursement for cancer testing.

The CMS will offer end-to-end testing of Medicare claims using the ICD-10 diagnostic and procedure codes, an attempt to deliver much sought-after assurances that its contractors will be prepared for the Oct. 1 implementation date.

It's called patient dumping when hospitals transfer patients without insurance to public hospitals. But a new study from Stanford University has turned dumping on its head. It finds that hospitals are less likely to transfer critically injured patients to trauma centers if they have health insurance.

Arkansas' compromise to renew its Medicaid expansion plan was rejected by the state House of Representatives in a 70-27 vote. With nearly 90,000 low-come individuals enrolled in the plan, failure to re-launch the program raises questions about its future in the state.

Conservative Republican state officials who oppose the federal health care overhaul told Kansas legislators Tuesday that they can position the state to opt out of its requirements.

Colorado is one of eleven states that are starting to make a lot of health care prices public.

The Arkansas House failed Tuesday to renew the state's compromise Medicaid expansion plan, leaving in limbo the future of a program heralded as a model for Republican-leaning states to implement the federal health overhaul.

To improve care, policy analysts and health leaders recommend there be fewer and narrower quality measures.

Companies that make generic drugs, the medications most Americans buy, are fighting to kill a proposed federal regulation that would require them for the first time to warn patients of all the known health risks of each drug they sell.

Using bronchiolitis clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) was linked to reduced use of chest X-rays (CXRs), bronchodilators, steroids, and length of stay (LOS) in hospitalized children without affecting 7-day all-cause readmissions.

The health insurance industry will be closely watching on Friday when the CMS is scheduled to release initial guidance on Medicare Advantage rates for 2015.

Implementing the new ICD-10 procedural and diagnostic codes, which the CMS says must happen by Oct. 1, will be more expensive than previously estimated, according to new research. But costs will vary widely depending on practice circumstances.

Bringing together all of the areas of the hospital together allowed the hospital to create a system of transparency and accountability. In turn, this has ensured that everyone is doing what they are supposed, when they are supposed to.

Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center in Baltimore suggest that controlling the costs to treat cancer without increasing risk to patients requires a collaborative approach.

Most states are still lagging when it comes to sign-ups under President Obama's health care law, but an Associated Press analysis of numbers reported Wednesday finds a dozen high-achievers getting ahead of the game.

In response to a request for comment issued by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on its proposed Quality Strategy, the American Hospital Association is calling for more significant alignment of its quality measurement activities in order to reduce the burden on hospitals and providers.

The malady of rising medical costs is acute, especially in the field of oncology. As populations age, new cancer cases are expected to reach 21.4 million in 2030, while treatment costs are projected to increase 40 percent by 2020.

New research offers high-quality, empirical data on the V-BID plan features that appear most effective for stimulating greater medication adherence.

Some backers of the 2010 health-care law are pushing to create a new kind of insurance coverage that the measure essentially had ruled out: policies offering lower premiums but significantly higher out-of-pocket costs than those now available.

Current reform efforts seek to tie providers' pay with performance, yet a recent finding suggests that less than 15% of internal medicine residency programs provide education that focuses on such training.

The likelihood of a positive outcome for a patient across the continuum of care is closely tied to the ability of the patient's health information to follow suit.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Wednesday granted accelerated approval for the expanded use of ibrutinib, marketed as Imbruvica, for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients who have previously received at least one therapy. The therapy is notable for its relative lack of toxic effects.

Federal regulators are trying to set expectations and a tentative schedule for public exchange plans in 2015; they're also proposing a new approach to network adequacy and essential community providers, after complaints from consumers and providers in a few markets.