Susan Morse
Over 300 healthcare and patient advocacy organizations sent a letter to Senate and House leaders on Thursday urging them to press the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to permanently withdraw a reduced Part B drug payment model from consideration.
The Aetna Whole Health-Virtua plan will be introduced in South Jersey later this year and will use Virtua's community-based health system of hospitals, outpatient facilities, urgent care centers, and health and wellness centers.
While the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is touting the success -- 11 months ahead of schedule -- of tying 30 percent of fee-for-service Medicare payments to alternative payment models such as accountable care organizations and bundled payments, questions still remain over how much money value-based programs will save.
The House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee held a bipartisan debate Wednesday over the future of Medicare and planned cuts to the Medicare Advantage program as sharp party divides over healthcare continue to widen.
Registered nurses at Kaiser Permanente's flagship Los Angeles Medical Center on Tuesday began a seven-day strike that has the support of presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, according to the California Nurses Association.
Hospitals are increasingly turning to credit checks to determine both an individual's ability to pay and to mine data on their patient population's health.
Of the 3,651 new codes, 97 percent will update the cardiovascular and lower joint body systems. There will also be new codes for a face transplant, hand transplant and donor organ perfusion, CMS said.
Under the new system, CMS estimates it saved Medicare approximately $3.6 billion between 2013 and 2015.
Donald Trump's plan to repeal and replace Obamacare would cost an estimated $270 billion over ten years and would nearly double the number of uninsured Americans, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonprofit, bipartisan fiscal watchdog group.
The American Medical Association, the Florida Medical Association and the Florida Osteopathic Medical Association are calling on Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to reject the proposed merger of health insurer giants Aetna and Humana, according to a March 14 release from the AMA.