Richard Pizzi

May Editorial by Editor Richard Pizzi

As Managing Editor Eric Wicklund reports in this issue, pharmacy benefit management firm Express Scripts is acquiring Wellpoint’s NetRx subsidiary businesses in a $4.75 billion cash and equity deal.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has proposed 2010 payment rate updates for acute care and long-term care hospitals that will not please hospital officials.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has proposed adjustments to fiscal year 2010 payment rates for Medicare beneficiaries in nursing homes.

Lompoc Valley Medical Center in Santa Barbara County, Calif., intends to sell $4.06 million in insured revenue bonds to help fund a facility expansion project.

The U.S. government will purchase an additional 13 million treatment courses of antiviral medication to help fight influenza, including the 2009 H1N1 flu virus.

The Mississippi State and School Employees Health Insurance Management Board has announced a one-year extension of its pharmacy benefit management contract with Catalyst Rx.

Healthcare reform efforts must rein in “runaway costs” to have an abiding impact on the U.S. economy, yet there is resistance to such reform because industry players make so much money from the current system.

Researchers studying the effectiveness of a new Medicaid program in West Virginia have concluded that the program reduces Medicaid services for at least 90 percent of the population that receives them.

New biological techniques might be able to speed recovery and shorten hospital stays for patients undergoing the 100,000-plus surgical procedures performed each day in the United States, says a new report.