Mary Mosquera

Despite the noise around the higher cost of some health plans on the exchanges, rate increases generally have more to do with the trend of steadily higher medical costs than with provisions of the Affordable Care Act.

Doctors are getting a three-month reprieve from Congress. Included in the bipartisan two-year budget deal to fund the government is a delay until March of a scheduled 24 percent Medicare payment cut and a 0.5 percent pay increase.

Oversight of the health insurance exchanges and the shift to value-based payments are the leading management challenges facing the Department of Health and Human Services in the coming year and the most concerning to the HHS Office of Inspector General.

Nonprofit healthcare providers may be at a tipping point with mounting negative pressures and more downgrades anticipated in 2014, a recent Standard & Poor's ratings report said.

Administration proposes financial fix to offset potential losses from continuing cancelled plans.

A key component to making value-based payment models work is getting physicians on board. But while physicians are supportive of the improved care coordination of such models, they are wary of how the payment structure will work.

Global spending on medicines is predicted to grow slowly in the next five years, with growth in developed countries much slower than in emerging markets.

Physicians across a number of specialties are taking the lead to test developing new payment and delivery models. A few of them described their projects at a Brookings Institution forum on physician payment reform.

President Barack Obama's bid to throw a life preserver to stranded consumers who received cancellation notices from their health plans may increase bad debt for hospitals and financial losses and uncertainty for payers.

Health plans with a high proportion of dual-eligible members may be at a disadvantage for receiving quality incentive payments, suggests a new study.