Kelsey Brimmer

With healthcare costs and chronic disease rates continually rising each year, it will only become more difficult for both employees and employers (who must pay to insure their employees) to keep up financially, which is why successful employee wellness programs are becoming an increasingly important asset in the workplace.

Employee wellness plans can be great cost savers for both health insurance companies and employers in the long run, but with new proposed rules and regulations around wellness plans set to begin on Jan. 1, 2014, employers and insurers are going to have to be careful about following more legal requirements.

Last week New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced a $3.1 million settlement with Excellus BlueCross BlueShield requiring the insurer to refund 12,000 plan members who overpaid their healthcare providers as a result of the company's improper accounting of deductibles.

Research has shown that healthcare organizations with high employee engagement scores tend to have better patient outcomes overall, according to Murat Philippe, principal consultant at Avatar HR Solutions in Chicago.

Hospitals and healthcare systems across the country will soon be facing large cuts in Medicare if the U.S. Congress cannot reach an agreement on an alternative deficit reduction plan in order to avert the so-called fiscal cliff, therefore it's a good idea for these organizations to start being proactive.

In a new study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, it was found that after examining patients suffering from pneumonia and heart failure, a broad range of social factors affect the risk of post-discharge readmission and mortality.

BayCare Health System in Clearwater, Fla., has agreed to pay over $10.1 million to the federal government to resolve allegations that the health system violated the False Claims Act announced the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) last week.

A new report indicates that while U.S. primary care physicians still trail their counterparts in other countries in their use of electronic medical records (EMRs), they are making progress and are finding more efficiencies through EMR use.

With the implementation of a grant-funded program to reduce hospital readmissions for elderly patients with heart failure, the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Medical Center was able to reduce rates of heart failure readmissions over a two-year period by 46 percent within 30 days of hospital discharge and by 35 percent within 90 days.

In an effort to control costs and get people covered by health insurance, the Affordable Care Act offers a number of options for covering low-income people. Among those options is the Basic Health Program, which some say will save money and others say will kill health insurance exchanges.