All News

Value-based insurance design (VBID) plans with certain features aside from solely lowering cost sharing can increase medication adherence, according to a study.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), in his first speech as the new chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, said it's important for Congress to pass legislation that would permanently repeal Medicare's contentious physician payment formula, but did not say how lawmakers intend to pay for it.

Open enrollment for the 2014 state and federal health insurance exchanges will end this month, but various findings contest their anticipated success.

President Barack Obama is proposing more than $400 billion in cuts to Medicare over the next decade in his fiscal 2015 budget, an almost identical amount to what he recommended last year. But those cuts are heavily weighted toward future years, with only $3.5 billion occurring in 2015.

Lawmakers in Richmond are deep in budget negotiations and will soon decide which parts of the mental health-care system will receive a funding boost.

The Food and Drug Administration will get a 1% funding increase from President Barack Obama's proposed fiscal 2015 budget, a level some say is not enough to cover the agency's new responsibilities and the increasingly global nature of the products it regulates.

The Republican-led House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to delay for one year the tax penalty Americans will pay under President Barack Obama's healthcare law if they decline to enroll in health coverage for this year.

Conference Highlights from the 2014 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI) in San Diego, California.

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) has revised its medical guidelines to expand Lynch syndrome screening. Lynch syndrome is the most common cause of hereditary colon cancer in adults.

For state exchanges still struggling to function, and governors facing the consequences, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is offering an exception to the rule of tax credits only being available through public marketplaces.

More than 400 accountable care organizations (ACOs) exist across the country, and physician groups have overtaken hospitals as the largest backers of ACOs.

Health policy advisors and advocates are shifting their focus to the possibilities of telehealth, which would allow physicians to treat patients virtually. Health experts suggest that this emerging health frontier could be promising, especially for patients who are immobilized or who live in remote locations.

'In order to get technology to truly work for physicians, it must drive productivity'

The ObamaCare exchanges have reduced the choice of and increased the price of insurance polices when compared to what existed in 2013 on the individual market, says a just-released study.

It's one of the most impressive statistics about the new health care law. The Obama administration says more than 8.9 million people have been, quote determined eligible for Medicaid from Oct. 1 through the end of January.

A coalition of patient advocates, dialysis-care providers and manufacturers today will unveil a comprehensive new framework for kidney care across the country that identifies four goals: improve survival, reduce hospitalizations, improve health-related quality of life, and improve patient experience with care.

There's a new drug regimen being touted as a potential cure for a dangerous liver virus that causes hepatitis C. But it costs $84,000 -- or $1,000 a pill. And that price tag is prompting outrage from some consumers and a scramble by insurers to figure out which patients should get the drug -and who pays for it.

Genetic counseling-including testing and risk assessment-is one of the most rapidly growing areas of oncology and has become the standard of care for patients with a personal and family history of breast, ovary, or colon cancer.

Those with chronic illnesses such as leukemia, hepatitis C, and multiple sclerosis may face a significant increase in their out-of-pocket expenses for specialty drugs. This is because payers are replacing fixed-dollar copayments with coinsurance rates that require patients to contribute a higher percentage of the cost for their specialty medications.

When it comes managing the long-term care of dual eligibles, many health systems are looking toward managed long-term supports and services (MLTSS). Unlike traditional Medicare and Medicaid, MLTSS would expand managed healthcare medical services to include personal support and other assistance.

Although highly touted, the patient-centered medical home model failed to lower use of services or total costs and produced little quality improvement over three years, research has found.

The federal government's top health official Thursday gave U.S. healthcare innovation a grade of Incomplete.

Session highlights from the Managed Markets Summit in Orlando, FL, February 25-27.

Doctors and other health providers wrote about 11 million fewer prescriptions for narcotic painkillers in 2013 than in 2012, but some experts expected a bigger drop-off given the brighter spotlight on the nation's opioid epidemic.

It's a simple idea, but a radical one. Let people know in advance how much health care will cost them-and whether they can find a better deal somewhere else.

The cost of new hips and knees for privately insured patients varied widely across three dozen hospitals in six states, with hospitals themselves the primary reason, a study shows.

Pressing for a final rush of health care enrollees, President Barack Obama said Tuesday that about 4 million people have signed up for health insurance through federal or state marketplaces set up under his health care law.

A patient-centered medical home (PCMH) demonstration project did little to reduce costs and utilization or improve the quality of care, researchers found.

Session highlights from the Managed Markets Summit in Orlando, FL, February 25-27.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan has expanded its value-based hospital reimbursement model with 5 more health systems in the state, representing 24 hospitals, for a total of 7 systems.