Healthcare Finance Staff

Public hospitals can be among the most aggressive in collecting debts from poor patients, not only garnishing their wages, but cleaning out their bank accounts.

Wrangell Medical Center, a critical access hospital and long-term care facility, is on the edge of financial collapse, an independent audit by Anchorage, Alaska-based BDO USA found. A failed attempt to build a new hospital drained the hospital’s coffers of $3.5 million.

After a debut of health insurance marketplaces that fit all of the worst government contracting stereotypes, CMS has found a lead contractor to try to improve exchanges into the next decade.

Will any of the new federally-backed cooperative insurers survive? To pro-business advocates skeptical of the Affordable Care Act in general, they are doomed and should be.

Many insurers are adopting comprehensive telehealth coverage, setting the ball rolling for others to follow suit.

Of all the new cooperative insurers, the one led by a Blue Cross veteran attracting droves of exchange and employer members might seem the least likely to fail. Now the success of every co-op will be in question.

The plan moves the emergency room closer to the university's new hospital facility and would boost the number of beds from 36 to 42.

In the war for affordably treating the hepatis C liver virus, pharmacy benefits managers are fighting back now that alternatives are becoming available.

As the second largest health insurer formerly known as WellPoint nurtures the new corporate Anthem brand, it's also continuing to grow its presence in the government-funded health plan space.

Deep inside the massive 2015 federal budget are provisions that could rattle the insurance industry as a whole, while also benefiting a few.