Policy and Legislation
The House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee is looking at ways to move beyond the Sustainable Growth Rate formula, the current method of paying Medicare physicians.
The GOP has unveiled separate bills to repeal 'maintenance of effort' requirements for Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Programs - an action they say is necessary to help states balance their budgets in the face of ballooning healthcare costs.
More than 76 percent of hospitals participating in the National Hospital Preparedness Program met 90 percent or more of all program measures for all-hazards preparedness in 2009, according to a report released today by the Department of Health and Human Services' Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response.
California's Department of Managed Health Care has deemed a May 1 increase for 120,000 members of Anthem Blue Cross "unreasonable," but doesn't have the power to block it.
EMD Serono, an affiliate of German drug maker Merck, has agreed to pay $44.3 million to settle a lawsuit alleging false claims submissions to Medicare and Medicaid for the multiple sclerosis drug Rebif.
A new study by the National Center for Policy Analysis shows that states and the federal government could save $33 billion in prescription medication costs by switching to models used by Medicare and other private payers.
Poor childhood health caused by environmental factors, such as air pollution and exposure to toxic chemicals, cost the United States $76.6 billion in 2008, according to authors of a study in the May issue of Health Affairs.
Fifteen percent of U.S. nursing homes receive deficiency citations for infection control each year, according to a new study.
Republicans and Democrats have each offered proposals to reduce projected Medicare expenditures. Neither proposal has any realistic chance of passage. Maybe it’s time to blow the cobwebs off the 1999 proposal from the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare.
Hospitals across the country have been rocked by nursing strikes over the last year. The coming months show no letup, which means that hospitals will continue to face major disruptions, both financial and otherwise.