News

In a profession full of flux and uncertainty, America's physicians say they are generally not a happy lot. But female physicians do seem to be a bit less miserable overall, according to a recent study by The Physicians Foundation.

U.S. healthcare prices dropped marginally in March 2013, falling 0.1 percent from February 2013 prices, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

With the Affordable Care Act entering the home stretch of implementation, U.S. Senators are still trying to understand the costs and benefits of insurance market reforms, while diagnosing problems in the greater healthcare system.

A new report by Trust for America's Health says prevention improves health and productivity and saves billions, but is prevention really cost effective?

While the Great Recession has ended, it’s anything but back to business-as-usual for strategic and financial planners in the healthcare industry. The Affordable Care Act and the shift from the traditional fee-for-service payment system to an innovative fee-for-value system is seeing to that.

With no comprehensive program designed to provide long-term care insurance, a panel of experts who convened in March agreed that comprehensive reform has about a five-year window for implementation in order to sufficiently meet the needs of baby boomers.

What is the secret to improved financial performance for hospitals in the age of healthcare reform? Understand and manage the convergence of quality, outcomes, patient experience, reimbursements and costs. And there’s no better place to start than with the hospital’s number one expense – the operating room.

A few years back, the nation’s most notorious junk food junkie had a change of heart. Cookie Monster, who subsisted solely on the chocolate chip cookies, went from singing, “C is for cookie,” to “eat poultry and greens along with your chocolate chips.”

One of the business pain points for physicians is collecting payments from patients for their services, which often involves lots of customer service call time on the phone. An online payment platform for healthcare, called Money2, from Citi aims to make that process easier, more efficient and consumer-friendly, according to those involved with the tool.

Among the least popular decisions handed down by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in recent years, it’s hard to top the rule requiring hospitals to rein in readmission rates or suffer the financial consequences. As most CFOs are painfully aware, those consequences include substantial reductions in reimbursements.