Reimbursement
Strategies include increased competition and negotiation with incentives to lower list prices and out-of-pocket costs, HHS Sec. Alex Azar says.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar's proposal would cut funding to the CDC and NIH, focus on opioid epidemic and drug pricing.
Physician organizations come together to help medical groups better manage the messy transition to new payment models.
Funds targeted were appropriated but never spent.
Recent survey shows 71 percent of ACOs would likely leave Medicare Shared Savings Program if required to move to a two-sided model.
Faced with the lack of the individual mandate, insurers are narrowing networks, raising deductibles and out-of-pocket costs to keep rates from going even higher.
The new version of the program focuses on a number of key areas important to pediatric populations, such as surgical site infection outcomes for specific procedures.
Judge dismisses a contract dispute over billing practices that is now expected to head to arbitration.
Pharmacy benefit manager alignments will help control the big expense of prescription drugs, Cigna and Aetna executives said in latest round of earnings calls.
Finance execs at the big payers all say the Medicare Advantage market will only get bigger, and more lucrative, as baby boomers retire and CMS adjusts payment rules.