Healthcare Finance Staff

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), a global investments firm, and the American Heart Association (AHA) have recently teamed up to launch a new research collaboration to study how effective workplace wellness initiatives have been at KKR and four of its portfolio companies.

Health spending grew 4.2 percent nationally in July relative to July 2011, up from the 3.9 percent growth rate experienced in June, according to the Health Sector Economic Indicators brief released recently by the Altarum Institute's Center for Sustainable Health Spending.

Certifi nabs Utah HIX business "Exchanges are going to come in all shapes and sizes," Jay Belschner, managing partner of the Minnesota-based consulting, software and compliance firm Certifi told the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

  Consumer-driven health plans (CDHPs) were offered by 58 percent of employers in 2011, making them the second most popular health benefits option for the first time, according to an Aon Hewitt survey of more than 2,000 employers.

Timothy Bickmore, associate professor at Northeastern University's College of Computer and Information Science, has been working for the past decade in the area of "relational agents." He says these artificially intelligent avatars are poised for a promising future in healthcare.

While most healthcare organizations are anxious to see what changes to the system healthcare reform will bring, executives at urban and safety-net hospitals are most concerned about the looming Medicare and Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) payment cuts and the challenges these cuts will bring.

Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Rick Langfelder at Lutheran Medical Center, a 462-bed hospital located in Brooklyn, N.Y., spoke recently with Healthcare Finance News Associate Editor Kelsey Brimmer regarding the most pressing financial issues that many hospitals located in urban areas of the U.S. have been facing over the last few years and what is to come for them.

Marie Freire, PhD President The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health Bethesda, Md.

A three-judge federal court in Boston rejected the state of Maine's request for an expedited review of its Medicaid waiver application, Thursday, saying "the facts do no warrant" the need for a fast review.

The relationship between physicians and insurance companies has always been complicated. While the ultimate goal of these groups is the same -- improving patient health outcomes through quality care -- the paths to achieving this goal can be very different.