Anthony Brino

Some health systems are trying to help patients avoid high-cost bills altogether, by working with insurers to craft value-based plans that offer low out-of-pocket costs.

Under the provision, CMS could continue to use Medicare Administrative Contractors to "probe and educate" providers on their likely compliance with the two-midnight rule.

A number of big deals, involving both for-profit and nonprofit health systems, have recently fallen apart amid pushback from regulators and skepticism from researchers, who note a lack of evidence about long-term quality and cost impacts.

The deal comes five years after Humana spent $790 million to buy Concentra, a network of 300 urgent care and physical centers and 245 work-site clinics in 38 states.

Banner finished 2014 with $8.8 billion in total assets.

Many startups aimed at bringing hospitals and physicians software and management services to adapt to new Medicare and insurance payment models.

Changing the bids could take as long as two years.

The nine-hospital Massachusetts-based health system owned by Cerberus Capital Management, lost $52 million in 2013 on $2.1 billion of revenue, according to data disclosed to the Massachusetts Center for Health Information and Analysis.

A few academic medical centers, physician networks and health plans are thinking differently about venture capital by coming up with new ways to spark healthcare entrepreneurship.

University Medical Center of El Paso will have more oversight of El Paso Children's in exchange for forgiving about $40 million in debt.