News

A new report released Wednesday examines the health and well-being of people living in nearly every county in the United States, and finds that rates of premature deaths are at the lowest level in 20 years. Nevertheless, people in the unhealthiest counties are dying too early at more than twice the rates of those in the healthiest counties, according to the 2013 Health Rankings, published by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.

Providers will drive the overhaul of the health system when they focus on the value of their care delivery to produce measurably better outcomes for patients.

The 333 hospitals taking part in Premier healthcare alliance's QUEST collaborative saved 92,000 lives and $9.1 billion over four-and-a-half years, Premier announced on March 19, and if the practices employed in the collaborative were replicated nationwide, Premier officials say, hospitals potentially could save 950,000 lives and approximately $93 billion.

State governors who say expanding the Medicaid program as spelled out in the Affordable Care Act is bad for business, may in fact be hurting business owners more by refusing to expand the insurance program for the poor.

The House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, will launch a three-day series of hearings today to investigate issues involving mobile health -- particularly how to keep innovation flowing without over-regulating.

Any patient will tell you that a good bedside manner is just as important as solid medical credentials. As far as Dr. Hubert Fu is concerned, that extends as much to the practice of debt collection as it does to the practice of medicine and that's why he started Debt M.D.

Hospital ratings often come to wildly different conclusions. Some hospitals rated as outstanding by one group are ignored or panned by another. Ratings results from an individual group can change significantly from year to year. Instead of offering clarity, hospital ratings often yield confusion.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, the state's largest insurer, formerly tax-exempt and serving as a guaranteed issuer since 1980, is now subject to the same market rules as its competitors as it becomes a nonprofit mutual company -- with a 70 percent share of the state's commercial market -- under a law signed by the governor Monday.

Even though 2 percent reductions are scheduled to hit Medicare payments due to sequestration cuts beginning on April 1, a recent Standard & Poor's (S&P) report said the futures outlook for for-profit hospitals is stable.

Medical groups reported an average turnover rate of 6.8 percent in 2012, according to the annual Physician Retention Survey from Cejka Search and the American Medical Group Association (AMGA), who released their findings March 18.