Reimbursement

CMS yesterday published a notice indicating an increase in the Medicare Hospital OPPS conversion factor from $74.144 to $74.173, which will slightly increase payment rates for most ambulatory payment classifications.

As appropriations are trimmed and payments decline, hospitals in the archipelago state making steep cuts to hold back the losses.

Move comes as state ties payment to the size of patient populations covered by health networks.

One of the nation's smaller but more influential integrated health systems has a new chief executive, in time for both fine-tuning and new ventures.

This year's open enrollment may be mostly over. But for 2016 and beyond, insurers should prepare for evolving regulations on everything from premium increases to drug formularies.

Voters, and the industry, may end up liking parts of both Republican and Democratic ideas. They might ask a reasonable question: Why can't we take the best from both sides?

In the farming town of Exeter, deep in California's Central Valley, Anne Roberson walks a quarter mile each day to her mailbox. Her walk and housekeeping chores are the 68-year-old's only exercise, and her weight has remained stubbornly over 200 pounds for some time.

When Pavel Poliakov's small clothing shop in a picturesque college town closed last year, he felt lucky to be able to sign up for Medicaid just as Colorado expanded the program under the new healthcare law.

The nation's largest nonprofit health system is quietly getting into the insurance game under the auspices of population health.

Proposal brings falling payments for insurers, potentially disruptive options for health systems.