Mike Miliard

Medical practices spend an average of 785 hours per physician and $15.4 billion annually reporting quality measures to Medicare, Medicaid and private insurers, according to a new report in Health Affairs.

In a 'major milestone' for the Affordable Care Act, 30 percent of Medicare payments are now made through alternative payment models.

One week after Andy Slavitt said meaningful use would be replaced soon, the acting Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator and national coordinator Karen DeSalvo made it clear that the changes would take time and that providers must still follow the current program.

A blanket hardship exception from 2015's meaningful use reimbursement penalties passed both the House and Senate last week as part of the Patient Access and Medicare Protection Act, offering providers wider latitude for securing exemptions from possible fines.

Healthcare organizations are bulking up their privacy protections with firewalls, encryption, data loss prevention software and more, but the much lower-tech visual hacking threat is still a concern, according to a new 3M educational campaign.

Population health management is fast becoming a priority for healthcare providers, but many are still figuring out which technology partners are best suited to help them fuel data-driven initiatives, according to a new 2015 Population Health Study by HIMSS Analytics.

Lahey Hospital and Medical Center has settled with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights for potential HIPAA violations related to lax security policies around workstations and medical devices.

The study found that only 8 percent of healthcare institutions prohibit consumer messaging apps for employee communication -- perhaps unsurprising given employees in the healthcare industry use mobile messaging more frequently than voice calling for colleagues with whom they communicate most frequently.

The American Medical Association is adding 20 leading medical schools to the 11 already participating in its Accelerating Change in Medical Education Consortium, a group that hopes to "bridge the gaps that exist between how medical students are trained and how healthcare is delivered" in the 21st Century.

Venture capital funding for digital health rebounded in the third quarter of 2015, up 32 percent quarter over quarter with $1.6 billion doled out across 148 deals, according to a new report from Mercom Capital Group.