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3.0 Credits - CME/CPE | Expires 03/15/2016

The guidance comes after advocacy groups and members of Congress complained of widespread violations of the Affordable Care Act's requirement that all forms of birth control be covered without a co-payment, not just the low-cost methods. The action also responds to recent reports that payers have balked at requests for BRCA testing even when indicated.

A very small segment of the Medicaid-only population-those who are not also eligible for Medicare-accounted for almost half of expenditures for all Medicaid-only enrollees from 2009 to 2011, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office.

The study, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that in addition to protecting against 80% of cervical cancers, the new Gardasil-9 has the potential to protect against nearly 19,000 other cancers diagnosed in the United States.

In his blog, a University of Chicago economist says that while non-adherence is a major source of waste in US healthcare-totaling approximately 2.3% of GDP-achieving the optimal level of adherence to treatments is more nuanced than strictly raising adherence rates.

Based on their analysis of a mail-in questionnaire, researchers in Canada found that parents who had their daughters vaccinated differed from those who did not do so in perceived susceptibility to the disease, benefits and barriers of the vaccine, and cues to action.

In this Health Affairs blog, experts provide examples of payment reform in the emergency department that'd move away from the traditional fee-for-service, while at the same time improving outcomes at a lower cost.

Carolinas HealthCare System monitors ICUs in 10 of its hospitals from a command center near Charlotte. The command center is staffed 24/7 with a rotating crew of 7 to 9 nurses and doctors who specialize in critical care.

Insurers are expecting broad adoption of wearables by their industry within the next 2 years, according to a report from Accenture.

February's report from the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee called for an emphasis on plant-based diets and less red or processed meat. Protests from the meat industry followed, and the comment period was extended until Friday.

Medicare's new payment formula is set to begin in 2019. The problem is no one's agreed on standards for measuring quality or efficiency of patient care.

In collaborations with 14 cancer centers throughout the country, IBM will apply Watson Genomic Analytics, a cloud-based service, to implement evidence-based treatment decisions in oncology.

The White House is moving to address 2 of the most common consumer complaints about the sale of health insurance under the Affordable Care Act: that doctor directories are inaccurate, and that patients are hit with unexpected bills for costs not covered by insurance.

There's been a big increase in hepatitis C across central Appalachia, especially rural parts of the region, the CDC reported Thursday. That only stands to reason, because young people in that part of the country are injecting heroin and other opioids at epidemic rates.

A one-minute look at managed care news during the week of May 4, 2015, including global cancer drug spend, movements in telehealth, and changing behavior to reverse poor health.

The average per capita spending difference between people with and without diabetes was $10,310 from 2009 to 2013, according to a new report from the Health Care Cost Institute.

It's an incorrect, but convenient, shorthand to say that the Affordable Care Act establishes state-based health insurance markets. Actually, the markets are finer grained than that.

A year and a half ago, Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla made headlines when he stated at a conference that in the next decade "data science and software will do more for medicine than all of the biological sciences together."

Overall, regular breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer screening was below target in 2013, according to a new report from the CDC. In fact, researchers found overall screening in these 3 areas showed no improvements from 2010 to 2013.

The addition by the World Health Organization follows requests by consumer groups for the agency to widen its list to include some of the latest treatments carrying high price tags.

The Roswell Park pathology team reviewed 500 breast core biopsy cases provided by referring institutions in a single calendar year and found that 8% of the cases had a major discordance and 13% had a minor discordance, especially with respect to interpreting biomarkers that determine prognosis and therapeutic options.

Senate Democrats seek to limit profits on Medicaid contractors and included a provision that would bar savings by cutting providers' fees.

Amarin's action has initiated a debate on whether the FDA's authority over ensuring the safety and efficacy is being side-stepped.

The appeals court decision has ensured that Novartis cannot bring its biosimilar Zarxio (filgrastim), which provides immune support to cancer patients, to the market at least till June 3.

It is unclear at this time what role President Barack Obama's healthcare law, the Affordable Care Act, played in the slowdown of healthcare spending and how much can be attributed to the Great Recession.

Johnson & Johnson will ask an independent panel to recommend who gets a breakthrough drug that's still under development.

Healthcare billing and payment models must change to reflect the mobile, one-click reality of patients' lives, according to PwC's Health Research Institute. However, healthcare has been slow to evolve.

Designed to improve physician payment, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 is a step in the right direction, and certainly better than the alternative, but it's not magic and it's not enough.

Since the introduction of the Oncology Care Model, oncologists have raised numerous questions as they weigh whether to apply for participation.

Behavior, including adherence behavior, are the keys to improving outcome in a variety of diseases. We must rethink our adherence strategy by using Intelligent Engagement to control the plecosystem of adherence technologies.