News
All healthcare spending in the United States is projected to grow at an annual average rate of 5.8 percent for the period 2010 through 2020, according to a report released in late July by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Various stakeholders in the healthcare system have talked for years about applying to the healthcare system the engineering concepts that have made manufacturers like Toyota so efficient and successful. While those working in the field have been slow to adopt those concepts, more and more people are seeing the value in doing so.
It’s going to be a record-breaking year for mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the healthcare industry, according to a recent report from Irving Levin Associates.
Healthcare industry watchers are bracing for cuts to government sponsored healthcare programs once the so-called “Super Committee” begins working on ways to slash another $1.5 trillion from the budget over the next ten years.
A ruling made by the California Supreme Court in June may be binding only in that state but it has implications for doctors across the country.
Health plans are incorporating technologies to help them squeeze out administrative expenses from the premium revenue they bring in to meet medical loss ratio requirements designed to assure transparency and value for consumers' premiums. Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, large insurance companies must not spend more than 15 percent of premium revenue on administration and small insurers 20 percent, beginning this year.
Like other industry sectors, healthcare will reduce costs by driving quality as it rolls out ACOs and other health reform components, says CMS chief Donald Berwick.
The number of physician assistants practicing in the United States reached 83,466 in 2010, a 100 percent increase over the last 10 years.
Perhaps this is to be taken as a sign that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will not, as some healthcare IT pros no doubt are still hoping, push back the compliance deadline for ICD-10.
Two healthcare IT vendors are joining forces to give providers a single platform that can handle both billing and claims editing services.