News

Representatives of skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) are estimating the SNF sector will potentially lay off 20,000 employees, will forgo the creation of 20,000 new jobs and will alter employee benefits as a result of the Medicare payment cuts that took effect on Oct. 1.

Absences account for 35 percent of every organization's annual payroll budget, said Colleen Daigle to an audience at the KronosWorks2011 conference in Orlando on Monday.

HMS Holdings Corp. announced Monday that it will acquire HealthDataInsights, the Medicare recovery audit contractor for Region D, for approximately $400 million.

HMS Holdings Corp. announced Monday it will acquire privately held HealthDataInsights, which identifies and recoups improper payments for health plans and government payers, for approximately $400 million.

A one-year-old accountable care organization established by Allina Hospitals & Clinic and payer HealthPartners has reported that it reduced medical cost by $6 million in 2010 and reduced the medical cost trend to 3 percent compared with 8 percent in 2009.

As the federal government pours billions of dollars into the healthcare system to encourage the adoption rate of health information technologies, the Institute of Medicine is about to release a report this week raising concerns about the risks associated with electronic health records.

First-time applicants to medical school increased by 2.6 percent in 2011 to 32,654 students and total applicants increased by 2.8 percent to 43,919 according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

So far this year, more than 2.2 million people with Medicare have saved more than $1.2 billion on their prescriptions, for an average of $550 per person, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced Friday.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on Thursday released the final regulations for accountable care organizations (ACOs), which contain major revisions from the draft regulations released earlier this year.

In early October the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an advisory panel that helps inform the government on preventive healthcare, downgraded its recommendation on the PSA test for prostate cancer screening to a grade of D. It recommended doctors not routinely prescribe the test because “there is moderate or high certainty that the service has no net benefit or that the harms outweigh the benefits.”