Budgeting

UnitedHealth Group revenues grew 28 percent, or $10.2 billion year-over-year to $46.5 billion, but that was countered by greater losses in the exchange market than projected, according to a second quarter earnings report released Tuesday.

Government spending on "compounded" drugs that are handmade by retail pharmacists has skyrocketed, drawing the attention of federal investigators who are raising fraud and overbilling concerns.

Americans in their 80s and 90s are not the ones amassing the largest medical bills to hold off death, according to a new analysis that challenges a widely held belief about the costs of end-of-life care.

Even when patients were grouped by characteristics such as age or severity of illness, hospitals differed significantly in inpatient costs, length of stay, and time spent in the intensive care unit.

The Office of Rural Health Policy has announced the nine providers that will receive the first of $4 million in federal funding over the next three years.

High-need individuals who cost the public or private sectors $50,000 or more in a single year top the list of the most expensive sources of healthcare costs, according to a study released by the American Health Policy Institute.

A Health Affairs study of national healthcare spending and where it's going shows that purchases of medical services and increased compensation of highly skilled professionals accounted for spending growth in multiple areas between 1997 and 2012. The study looked at hospitals, physician offices and outpatient centers.

New research published Wednesday found that states that legalized medical marijuana -- which is sometimes recommended for symptoms like chronic pain, anxiety or depression -- saw declines in the number of Medicare prescriptions for drugs used to treat those conditions and a dip in spending by Medicare Part D, which covers the cost on prescription medications.

A new study takes a fresh measure of generic drugs' price advantages, revealing how much more Medicare Part D patients shelled out in copayments for two popular brand-name drugs in 2013. The result: 10.5 times more.

Americans with multiple chronic conditions -- not necessarily those with a poor immediate prognosis -- could have the largest impact on national spending, according to a new study published by Health Affairs.