Health Care Delivery

Nearly 2 million Californians have gained coverage with the expansion of the Medi-Cal program for poor and disabled people, including those who transitioned from temporary programs like Healthy Way LA. But roughly 800,000 more applications are pending from people presumed to be eligible for the program.

A poll of uninsured people in December found that of those who did not plan to get coverage, half said that cost was the main reason. Nearly 3 in 10 said they objected to the government's requiring it, while about one in 10 said they felt they did not need it.

President Obama's health law has led to an even greater increase in health coverage than previously estimated, according to new Gallup survey data, which suggest that about 12 million previously uninsured Americans have gained coverage since last fall.

As the structure of the healthcare system changes rapidly, patient-reported outcomes provide clinicians with a different set of tools for promoting health.

Want to know how many people have signed up for private insurance under Obamacare? Like the health care law itself, the answer is exceedingly complicated.

Even as the cost of prescription drugs has plummeted for many Americans, a small slice of the population is being asked to shoulder more and more of the cost of expensive treatments for diseases like cancer and hepatitis C, according to a report to be released on Tuesday by a major drug research firm.

The Obama administration's timeline for having ready the new healthcare law's online sign-up system "was just flat out wrong," outgoing Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in an interview that aired Sunday.

With the Affordable Care Act's open enrollment period now closed, perhaps there is an opportunity for constructive, bipartisan policy discussion on health care reform.

As hundreds of thousands of diabetics get health coverage under the federal law, insurance companies are aggressively targeting this glut of new patients, who are expensive to treat and often lax in taking medications and following their diet.

Exchange enrollment numbers recently topped 7 million people this past week, which means insurance companies across the United States are already predicting a hefty increase to consumers' 2015 health plan premiums.

The duals demonstration project launched last week in five counties, according to officials from the Department of Health Care Services, which is overseeing the project.

Health insurers often try to influence Washington through quiet persuasion in plush offices. To fight potential government cuts for private Medicare plans, however, they've hit the streets.

Patient access to some of the nation's best-known cancer-care centers could become a flashpoint in the simmering controversy surrounding the narrow networks being constructed by some insurers and healthcare providers.

With 2015 Medicare Advantage payment rates and policy changes pending, some lawmakers and associations are urging the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to stick to the cut it proposed while others are calling for rates not to drop.

As retail clinics plan to have a role in improving health outcomes, they must achieve the 3 components of the triple aim: access, quality, and cost.

Two Republicans dueled over Medicaid this morning, as the Senate's foremost opponent of expansion accused another senator of taking the "easy" route in rolling out a plan that would increase coverage.

Before the next season starts, states will be working with insurance companies to craft new plans and oversee new premium rates based on this year's claims. Most states also plan to tinker with or overhaul their websites.

Nonprofit, member-owned cooperatives aim to create more competition and drive prices down.

The public will learn for the first time this fall exactly how much their doctors are paid by the drug companies and devicemakers whose products they use. But don't expect it to be the end of the inquiry.

Healthcare spending rose at the fastest pace in 10 years last quarter, a development that could foreshadow higher costs for consumers this year.

The triple aim promised by healthcare reform-better quality care, greater patient satisfaction, at a lower cost-will play out procedure by procedure, as physicians find ways to deliver better care and find savings.

Wendell Primus, PhD, the veteran legislative aide for US House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, got right to the point when he asked those gathered for the 63rd Scientific Sessions of the American College of Cardiologists if, so far, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was helping them, as opposed to their patients.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' proposal to mandate broader provider networks in public insurance exchanges could have the unintended consequence of discouraging insurer participation, according to analysts at Moody's.

With less than a week remaining to sign up for private health insurance under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, more than half of the uninsured don't know that March 31 is the deadline.

New rules for Medicare Advantage (MA) plans would protect elderly citizens who might otherwise lose access to their preferred network of doctors.

Use of a patient-centered medical home model to care for those with chronic illness reduced costs and trimmed utilization for high-risk patients, according to a three-year study published today in The American Journal of Managed Care

The American Journal of Accountable Care will be the media sponsor for a seminar set for March 27-28, 2014, at Innisbrook Golf and Spa Resort in Palm Harbor, Fla., sponsored by TripleAim ACO Consulting Group. TripleAim's mission for the event is to share how the 29 ACOs that experienced shared savings of $126 million in 2012 accomplished the task, and to guide newer ACOs to success.

A new tier of coverage should be added to the health law's online marketplaces, or exchanges, that would be less comprehensive than what plans are now required to offer, the head of the health insurance industry's trade group said Sunday.

Emergency department usage in Massachusetts rose slightly both during and immediately after implementation of a 2006 state law expanding health care access, a sign that broader availability of insurance may increase use of the ED.

Nebraska legislators spent the past year crafting a conservative version of Obamacare's Medicaid expansion that they hoped would gain support in a pretty red state. But after a failed vote in the state legislature Wednesday, the Medicaid expansion is officially dead in Nebraska this year.