Strategic Planning

A significant number of people accessing ED care for overdoses are coming from underinsured populations where almost no subsidy is paid back to the healthcare provider.

As hospitals go on a buying spree for physician practices, ambulatory centers and other outpatient facilities, supply chain giant Henry Schein is raking it in amid all off this consolidation.

While providing medical services to the public has traditionally been seen as a domestic business, recent acquisitions of British healthcare concerns by Tenet Healthcare and Acadia Healthcare suggest that more U.S. healthcare providers are looking overseas for growth.

Uncertainty over which vendors offer the best revenue cycle management platform for them is motivating a growing number of hospitals and physician groups to outsource revenue cycle processes in lieu of making a large investment in software, according to a new report by BlackBook Research.

Dedicated funding is needed for research, the report says, and hospitals and doctors need to develop better ways to identify, reduce and learn from "near misses."

In a stark departure from the past, the vast majority of the country's medical schools now integrate discussions of cost, value and effectiveness into their curricula.

Experts say problems seen in September in testing ICD-10 codes could turn into disasters when the new diagnostic code set goes live on October 1.

Many doctors who initiate the discussions often do so on their own dime.

From bed pans and basins to catheters and syringes, hospital supply chain managers know just how important plastic products are to the business. And lucky for them, the drop in petroleum prices is creating much needed cost savings for savvy organizations.

Providers should use outcomes-based evidence to drive decisions about what they will continue to offer and what they won't, experts say.