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If the current payment parity program is allowed to expire at the end of the year, doctors will be forced to limit the number of new Medicaid patients they can afford to take on, according to 4 medical associations.

The war of words between managed care and pharmaceutical manufacturers, which began when Gilead set the price for its drug to treat the hepatitis C virus (HCV), has taken off in October with the reclassification of a trio of cancer drugs from Genentech. Growth in the "specialty pharma" sector, where prices are rising much faster than drug prices generally, has drawn concern from payers and the umbrella group that represents them, while the trade group that represents drugmakers is pushing back against critics, saying that it faces challenges in bringing life-saving therapies to market.

Recently approved as second-line treatment of metastatic melanoma, following resistance to ipilimumab, the FDA has now designated Keytruda as breakthrough therapy to treat EGFR-mutation and ALK-rearrangement negative NSCLC patients who have pr0gressed following platinum-based therapy.

Calls for greater healthcare pricing transparency have been gaining steam. A new study in JAMA found use of a private price transparency platform was associated with lower claims payments for 3 common medical services.

Radiation exposure due to chest irradiation in women who had childhood Wilms tumor increased their susceptibility to developing breast cancer later in life.

Today, Merck announced that Keytruda has been granted breakthrough therapy designation for treating patients with epidermal growth factor receptor mutation-negative and anaplastic lymphoma kinase rearrangement-negative non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Trials to learn the safety of vaccines to prevent the spread of the Ebola virus are moving as fast as possible in the United States and in Great Britain, as public health officials on both sides of the Atlantic scramble to contain the worst-ever outbreak of the disease.

The gene mutation in RNF43, previously missed in The Cancer Genome Atlas study, was identified in 20% of colorectal and endometrial cancers.

The UCSF study identified a window of 30 to 35 days post surgery, following surgery in patients with glioblastoma multiforme, when delayed radiation significantly improved OS and PFS.

This novel fluorescent imaging technique uses shortwave IR, which has much better tissue penetration than near-IR currently used in imaging.

The study, published in Cell Stem Cell, identified a microRNA-mediated inhibitory pathway that repressed expression of the speech and language gene FOXP2, promoting metastases of breast cancer cells to distant sites.

Electronic health records could actually increase the physicians' bureaucratic burdens, which already consume one-sixth of their time, according to a study by City University of New York professors.

Hospital consolidation for the purpose of improving patient care coordination and reducing cost of care is backfiring, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Horizon BCBS partners with RCCA to improve quality of care for breast cancer patients by evaluating their molecular subtype before administering treatment.

The group, led by Koch Institute director Tyler Jacks, used CRISPR to generate mutant genes that were then packaged into enteroviruses that were used to infect target organs in mice. This is a much faster process than the traditional method that need crossing genetically-engineered mice.

US Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell announces new progams and financial incentives to help accountable care organizations (ACOs) and professional medical associations make the transition from fee-for-service to value-based healthcare delivery.

NCCN recommended the diagnostic proteomic test to identify patients who can receive erlotinib as second-line therapy.

A provision of the Affordable Care Act, the Sunshine Act provides for increased transparency in the healthcare realm.

Craig Spencer, MD, an emergency medicine physician at New York Hospital/Columbia-Presbyterian was admitted to Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan where he has tested positive for Ebola.

Effective immediately, Karen B. DeSalvo, MD, MPH, will be stepping down as national coordinator for health information technology to assist HHS in the fight against Ebola.

Patient-centered care has been getting a lot of attention as the healthcare industry focuses on the Triple Aim of delivering better health outcomes, improving patient experience, and reducing the cost of care. In that vein, the Louis W. Sullivan Institute for Healthcare Innovation recently released 6 guiding principles of patient-centered care.

Converting to for-profit status has a positive influence on a hospital's finances, but no effect on quality or mortality rates, found researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham and Women's Hospital.

While reference pricing helps contain costs for insurers, it pits patients between the payer and provider.

Oncologists and palliative care specialists at Duke University Hospital worked together in patient care, resulting in a 23% reduction in patient readmission within a week of discharge.