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Only 50 physicians and 4 hospitals that enrolled in the federal electronic health record (EHR) incentive payment program have reported achieving Stage 2 meaningful use of EHRs. Officials from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) said that due to these low numbers, many participating practitioners who did not achieve Stage 2 risk having their Medicare reimbursement payments lowered at the end of 2014.

Since the Obama administration launched its accountable care initiative as part of healthcare reform in 2012, the CMS has announced which hospital and physician networks in one of the programs have met cost targets and received shared savings. But so far, it has published little data on quality of care delivered by these networks, which were designed to deliver better care as well as lower costs for Medicare patients.

The Obama administration says the number of Medicare patients returning to hospitals within 30 days fell further in 2013, amounting to 150,000 fewer readmissions since January 2012.

The former Congressman discussed his goal of finding common ground on what constitutes mental health while at the 167th Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association.

A new biomarker for esophageal cancer shows promise in improving screening for this deadly disease and its precursor, Barrett's esophagus.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) reported that between 2002 and 2010, elderly healthcare spending grew at the slowest rate among all age groups, which, according to CMS, can be attributed to the recession.

Hospitalists to field changes in patient care delivery, health policies propelled by Obamacare for decades.

Bioengineers at Harvard have devised a chip with bone marrow to test chemotherapy and radiation-associated toxicity, bypassing the need to use animal models.

Cryotherapy, already being used for benign breast tumors and several other cancers, might prove effective in women with breast cancer tumors 1 cm or smaller in size.

Medicaid managed-care plans are demanding relief from state officials to meet mounting outlays for Gilead Sciences' wonder drug, while insurer WellPoint called Sovaldi its biggest watch item.

Vintafolide, jointly being developed by Merck and Endocyte, failed to present efficacy on PFS in Phase 3 trials, resulting in early termination.

OncologyCloud, a platform developed by Flatiron Health, is already in partnership with more than 25 cancer centers to help address some of the bottlenecks in cancer care.

Experts from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) found that big data tools can play an important role in personalizing healthcare delivery methods. Transforming care delivery models is an essential component of health reform because tailored, value-based care will lower costs and improve quality of care.

Despite the considerable resources designated to PCORI, its future remains tenuous.

States did little to improve healthcare access, quality, costs and outcomes in the past five years, according to a Commonwealth Fund report. Researchers examined 42 health indicators between 2007 and 2012, and found that in many states, access and affordability of healthcare actually declined among adults younger than 65. Healthcare spending rose $491 billion, reaching $2.8 trillion nationally.

Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients who experienced disease recurrence half a decade after surgery received a significantly higher dose of opioids postoperatively, researchers said here.

The CMS intends increase Medicare payments to hospices and also make several tweaks to policy definitions and procedures to ensure more accurate reimbursement.

Patients with locally advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck treated with hyperfractionated radiation therapy (HFX) experienced improved local-regional control and, with patients censored at five years, improved overall survival with no increase in late toxicity.

Demcizumab, a monoclonal antibody that targets the Notch signaling pathway, has been awarded an orphan drug status by the FDA in the treatment of pancreatic cancer.

Three out of four physicians believe that fellow doctors prescribe an unnecessary test or procedure at least once a week, a survey released Thursday finds.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed a rule this week that would reduce payments for hospital readmissions and hospital-acquired conditions in 2015.

The Federation of State Medical Boards approved a model telehealth policy this weekend that's made some providers of these services happy and others, well, not so much, because of its emphasis on using video rather than audio technology for a first patient visit.

In this study, the authors engineered BMP4-secreting mesenchymal stem cells to study their effect on a glioblastoma mouse model.

Value-based insurance design (V-BID) encourages providers to deliver higher quality services at lower out-of-pocket costs for patients, and it is increasingly gaining bipartisan support in Congress.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services late Wednesday issued a proposed rule for 2015 that reduces payment for readmissions and hospital-acquired conditions, but provides no changes to the controversial two-midnight rule.

An advisory panel to the CMS voted against recommending an annual low-dose CT scan for high-risk individuals citing no benefit over the harm of false-positives.

To better manage population health, some providers now invest in preventive technology and patient outreach as part of an initiative to eventually create "patient-centered medical neighborhoods," Becker's Hospital Review reports.

The White House sought to quash any fear that Obamacare is reversing downward trends in health spending as very preliminary estimates for U.S. economic growth in the first months of 2014 suggested spending on healthcare is rebounding sharply.

Validation studies presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery push availability of the DecisionDx-Mesothelioma molecular test through an early access program.

Following a FDA advisory earlier in the month of an increased risk of cancer spread, Johnson and Johnson suspended the global sale of a device used in fibroid surgery.