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The House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, will launch a three-day series of hearings today to investigate issues involving mobile health -- particularly how to keep innovation flowing without over-regulating.

Any patient will tell you that a good bedside manner is just as important as solid medical credentials. As far as Dr. Hubert Fu is concerned, that extends as much to the practice of debt collection as it does to the practice of medicine and that's why he started Debt M.D.

Hospital ratings often come to wildly different conclusions. Some hospitals rated as outstanding by one group are ignored or panned by another. Ratings results from an individual group can change significantly from year to year. Instead of offering clarity, hospital ratings often yield confusion.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, the state's largest insurer, formerly tax-exempt and serving as a guaranteed issuer since 1980, is now subject to the same market rules as its competitors as it becomes a nonprofit mutual company -- with a 70 percent share of the state's commercial market -- under a law signed by the governor Monday.

Even though 2 percent reductions are scheduled to hit Medicare payments due to sequestration cuts beginning on April 1, a recent Standard & Poor's (S&P) report said the futures outlook for for-profit hospitals is stable.

Medical groups reported an average turnover rate of 6.8 percent in 2012, according to the annual Physician Retention Survey from Cejka Search and the American Medical Group Association (AMGA), who released their findings March 18.

Medical school students are increasingly choosing family medicine, internal medicine and pediatrics, according to the latest data from the National Resident Matching Program (NRPM). Released last week, the NRPM's Main Residency Match showed that primary care matches rose by almost 400 compared to 2012 figures.

The Congressional Budget Office's reduced estimate of the cost of an SGR repeal may offer an opportunity for the Congress to act, MedPAC said in its annual report to Congress.

Vermont Health Connect, the state insurance exchange, has released a draft version of administrative rules for small group coverage, the first of several frameworks that will govern what's envisioned as a stepping stone to a publicly-financed, single-payer health system.

A new report from non-profits Catalyst for Payment Reform (CPR) and the Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute (HCI3) finds that 29 states get a grade of "F" for their lack of laws to provide for healthcare cost transparency.