Henry Powderly

Policy changes tied to Medicaid could have a drastic effect on whether many hospitals have the financial viability to stay in business, the Kaiser Family Foundation said in a new brief published Thursday.

Accountable care organizations in Medicare's Shared Savings program will now be held to regional spending benchmarks and not national ones, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Monday, responding to criticism that the earlier rules made it too difficult for strong-performing providers to see savings.

Healthcare businesses added 46,000 jobs in May, standing out in a month where job growth slowed across most industries, according to data released Friday by the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday filed a notice to join a whistleblower lawsuit against for-profit provider Prime Healthcare alleging it routinely submitted inpatient claims for patients who should have been treated as outpatients.

While public rankings from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and industry ones from groups like Leapfrog and Healthgrades, have raised awareness of hospital shortcomings in patient safety, and new report claims these programs fail themselves to stand up to scientific scrutiny.

Only 168 hospitals in the United States earned five stars in the latest Hospital Compare ratings from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, according to new data released last week.

Healthcare businesses added 44,000 jobs in April, another big surge for the industry and representing more than a quarter of the 160,000 jobs created that month among all hiring sectors, according to data released Friday by the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Major for-profit hospital chain Universal Health Services on Tuesday announced plans to buy out a minority interest in six of its Las Vegas acute care hospitals currently held by a third party.

Vermont led the country with 83 percent of hospitals earning 'A' grades while Maine and Rhode Island both came in second with 62.5 percent of hospitals earning top grades.

Nearly 800 hospitals earned the highest marks for safety in the Spring 2016 release of the Leapfrog Group's Hospital Safety Score, and report organizers say about 33,000 lives could be saved annually if every hospital performed that well.