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California has mistakenly sent letters to 246,000 low-income residents, warning they may need to find new doctors next year under the state's newly expanded Medicaid program.

Finding a health plan on the Medicare website could be troublesome for some seniors.

At The American Journal of Managed Care's (AJMC's) Patient-Centered Oncology Care: Real-World Perspectives (PCOC) conference, held November 14-15 in Baltimore, MD, discussion squarely centered on the ideals of making oncology care more patient-focused.

More hospitals are receiving penalties than bonuses in the second year of Medicare's quality incentive program, and the average penalty is steeper than it was last year, government records show.

Researchers who want to study population health using the vast stores of Medicare and Medicaid data will no longer have to order it and wait for the federal government to ship them encrypted data files.

Supporters and opponents of the federal health law still can't decide whether to call it the woodwork or welcome mat effect - the millions of people currently eligible for Medicaid who are not enrolled and who are expected to sign up as a result of the Affordable Care Act.

With millions of consumers getting cancellation notices for their current health plans, President Obama announced Thursday that he will encourage insurance companies to continue offering their customers the same health plans next year.

Patient-Centered Oncology Care: Real World Perspectives will take place November 14-15 at the Royal Sonesta Harbor Court, Baltimore. This two-day conference, which features an evening networking reception, will bring together key leaders in managed care and beyond. All will share how the goals of better care, savings and fair compensation can be achieved, even in the world of oncology.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced enrollment numbers today for the federal and state online health insurance marketplaces that opened Oct. 1. Medicaid enrollment data were also released.

Patient-centered medical home models being tested in the Military Health System could offer lessons in team-based care for civilian providers, who are similarly challenged by an aging population with complex chronic conditions, according to researchers.

Estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office are considered the gold standard in Washington.

The number of Americans taking cholesterol-lowering statin drugs is set to double under new guidelines.

The initial state healthcare exchange enrollment numbers are in, and that amount is short of expected estimates.

In order to achieve true interoperability, patients' need for better data sharing must come before the interests of providers, vendors and regulators.

About 8,000 Washington residents will soon receive letters informing them that the price they are expecting to pay for health insurance purchased on the new online exchange marketplace is incorrect.

Enrollment in health plans sold in the new health insurance marketplaces under the healthcare reform law appears to be lagging far behind targets.

In states refusing to expand Medicaid programs, many low-income individuals are likely to face even more difficulties in receiving care as a subsidy that assisted safety net hospitals is reduced under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

With increasing numbers of Americans gaining insurance under the Affordable Care Act, many experts are worried about the looming physician shortage.

For all the current focus on Obamacare lurching into its infancy, 50-year-old Medicare is also undergoing profound and disruptive change as Congress struggles with soaring medical bills and a growing senior population.

Insurance shoppers often can't choose plans that their doctors take part in or include doctors near them. And doctors may not be able to confirm they're in a plan when patients ask them.

A government subsidy, little known outside health policy circles but critical to the hospitals' survival, is being sharply reduced under the new health law.

Whereas population health focuses on the outcomes within a specific group, personalized medicine seeks to customize care delivery at the individual level. A recent discussion between Dr Eric Topol, director, Scripps Translational Science Institute, and Dr Farzad Mostashari, former director of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, highlighted the diverging opinions of where future healthcare models need to go.

The agency tasked with implementing the president's healthcare law said Thursday it had uncovered new stresses further downstream in the system that revealed the need for a fresh look at the back-end capacity needs of the online healthcare portal.

The Senate Finance Committee and House Ways and Means Committee jointly released their draft legislation to reform physician payment under Medicare on October 30.

Bowing to intense criticism, President Barack Obama apologized to Americans who are losing health insurance plans he repeatedly said they could keep and pledged to find fixes that might allow people to keep their coverage.

Tony Trenkle, the laconic federal official who was both the CMS' point man on the $16.6 billion electronic health-record incentive payment program and its technology leader during the launch of the troubled HealthCare.gov, will be stepping down as the agency's chief information officer and its director of information services to work in the private sector.

Some of the most significant changes in healthcare reform are being led by oncologists, especially as innovation and team-based collaboration are increasingly becoming the standard in cancer care delivery.

Healthcare reform, an aging population and a physician shortage are factors forcing hospital executives to rethink staffing, both inside and outside hospital walls, according to a panel discussion Tuesday during the U.S. News & World Report's Hospital of Tomorrow conference.

Oncologists are at the forefront of payment and delivery reforms sweeping medicine today, a former head of Medicare said.

U.S. health insurer Humana Inc on Wednesday said it expected earnings to decline next year because of spending on the new health exchanges and on the Medicaid program for the poor.