Anthony Brino

An estimated 45,000 American adults die each year because they have no health insurance, according a 2009 study in the American Journal of Public Health.

"Would incentives for improvement be greater if all pay-for-performance programs specifically considered improvement as part of scoring hospital performance?" authors ask.

Tufts Health Plan is working with Iora to open two new Iora Primary Care practices, in Medford and Hyde Park, exclusively for customers on Tufts' Medicare Preferred and Senior Care Options plans, the latter a dual eligibles plan.

BlueMountain's operation and potential ownership of Daughters of Charity guarantees that the hospitals will stay open for a minimum five years.

Last December, a 37-year-old patient with dissociative disorder died after hanging herself with a bedsheet and closet doorknob, a suicide that could have been prevented if Timberlawn used best practices.

Authors say there is need for more accountability in the Affordable Care Act's charity care standards, especially among nonprofit hospitals, which qualify for about $24 billion in federal, state, and local tax exemptions annually.

Community Health Systems is spinning off a group of rural hospitals and aiming to compete in larger metropolitan areas.

While hospitals in Maryland have not brought down the state's total costs of care, the all-payer system seems promising enough to state and federal leaders under universal healthcare coverage.

Under Hemingway Hall, HCSC's insurers added 3 million in membership, including in ACA exchanges, and the company tried to adapt and diversify, including adopting new information technology and preparing to contract in Medicaid.

As the programs turn 50, Medicare and Medicaid's long role in funding medical education is finding itself stretched thin by looming nursing and physician shortages.