All News

As the coming year approaches, more vendors are working toward meeting Stage 2 meaningful use in electronic health record (EHR) products.

As the end of 2013 closes in, most federal certification bodies are noticing an uptick in the number of vendors who are applying to become certified under the 2014 criteria - the same criteria that will be required for the EHR products providers must use to attest to meaningful use Stage 2.

Convention wisdom has long held that hospitals make up for reimbursement shortfalls in government insurance and uncompensated care by shifting those costs to the privately insured.

For many, a bill for more than a quarter million dollars is nothing to scoff at-but while treating those with cancer, these costs are all too common.

Millions of Americans may still log on to discover that they aren't eligible for any health coverage at all. And that won't be due to any technical glitch. It's because their state has.

By 2020, an estimated 85% of Medicaid beneficiaries are expected to be enrolled in a managed care organization a significant increase from the nearly 50% that are currently enrolled.

Connecticut seniors on Medicare are more likely to take sedatives for insomnia and medications for depression than their counterparts across the country, according to a new report by Dartmouth researchers.

Roughly 85% of Medicaid enrollees will be in managed care organizations by 2020, a health consultant and former state Medicaid director predicted here.

Seniors need to examine insurance plans carefully to avoid devastating financial surprises. It's not easy, though, as insurance becomes increasingly complex with sometimes widely disparate rules for various scenarios.

The debt ceiling has been raised, and that means that the government will be looking for ways to control long-term budget expenditures, including those for programs like Medicare.

Social security numbers allegedly passed around in clear sight. Page after page of unworkable code. And no clarity on when it will all be fixed. Just another day of trying to log in to healthcare.gov.

Health plans are sending hundreds of thousands of cancellation letters to people who buy their own coverage, frustrating some consumers who want to keep what they have and forcing others to buy more costly policies.

The cost to treat rare disease can be extraordinary.

Doctors should consider the "toxic" effects of medical debt as much as any other side effect when discussing treatment options with patients, a trio of physicians contends.

Benefits consultant Aon Hewitt predicted that healthcare premium costs for large U.S. employers would rise about 6 percent in 2013, but when it tallied up its numbers for the year, the increase was only about 3.3 percent.

As the dust settled following yesterday's last-minute budget deal to avert a federal government's default, a frightening fact emerged for the nation's doctors.

Physicians' access to a health information exchange saved more than $1 million in emergency care costs over a one-year period, according to a study released Monday by the American College of Emergency Physicians,

At year's end, Texas will shut down its high-risk insurance pool for some of the state's sickest residents, pushing participants to find private coverage in the federal health insurance marketplace created under the federal Affordable Care Act.

Community health centers will pay a steep price for states' decisions not to expand Medicaid under the federal health law.

Americans submitting their applications for Medicaid through the federal government's online insurance marketplace in 36 states may want to contact their state Medicaid agencies for faster results.

According to John McAfee one of the main problems with the Affordable Act is its technical shortfalls.

Hospital CEOs' pay isn't linked to their hospital's benefit to the community. Nor is it linked to the quality of care the hospital provides, a new study found.

The success of accountable care organizations (ACOs) and patient-centered medical homes (PCMHs) will depend upon physicians who embrace the concept of managing care across the care continuum and leading teams of professionals committed to evidence-based medicine while delivering on continuous quality improvement.

Asthma - the most common chronic disease that affects Americans of all ages, about 40 million people - can usually be well controlled with drugs. But being able to afford prescription medications in the United States often requires top-notch insurance or plenty of disposable income, and time to hunt for deals and bargains.

The disparities in the costs of care are obvious and just one of the reasons reform is needed in healthcare. For those managing chronic conditions like asthma, prescription drug costs seem to only be rising.

The U.S. administration has a little over a month to fix the technology problems crippling its online health insurance marketplace, or jeopardize the goal of signing up millions of Americans in time for benefits under President Barack Obama's healthcare law, experts said on Thursday.

Some major health insurers, including Aetna, WellPoint and Humana, have reduced patient cost-sharing for preventive drugs out of a growing realization that lowering cost-sharing increases patient compliance with drug therapies, improving outcomes and cutting the total cost of care.

ACOs are groups of providers that have been assigned a projected budget per patient. If the cost of caring for the patient comes in below that level, the group shares the savings. The idea is that doctors will better coordinate care to prevent wasteful or ineffective treatment. Pilot programs suggest the jury is still out on ACOs' ability to drive this kind of behavior.

The nation's largest health plans say they are rapidly moving toward transparency and away from paying doctors and hospitals on a fee-for-service basis, four insurance executives said this morning at Forbes Healthcare Summit 2013.

Expansion or not, it is obvious that states must consider how to make their Medicaid programs more sustainable.