Medicare & Medicaid

In total, 2,022 hospitals shared in the government payout, which settled 346,000 claims for reimbursement for treating Medicare patients admitted on or before Oct. 1, 2013.

The federal agency is considering fines and other sanctions for providers who engage in this.

Providers will now be held to using the correct degree of specificity in their coded claims to Medicare and Medicaid.

Overall, CMS said the amount it spent on drugs in 2014 grew by 17 percent year over year, driven by rising pharmaceutical costs.

CMS gives MA plans flexibility in benefit design for enrollees with certain chronic conditions.

Fewer than one-fifth of U.S. hospitals indicate they regularly review the patient-reported measures to guide medical care, according to a new survey from Health Catalyst.

Consumers face steep rate hikes next year. Some will be forced to make a difficult choice: pay a higher price to keep their plans -- and doctors -- or switch plans to save money but risk losing their doctors.

The agency is distributing close to $6 billion in uncompensated care payments over the next fiscal year, a decrease of about $400 million.

Medicare beneficiaries in certain Iowa and Illinois counties will have more options come the next open enrollment period.

The federal government will punish more than half of the nation's hospitals -- a total of 2,597 -- for excess readmissions by withholding more than half a billion dollars in Medicare payments over the next year, records released Tuesday show.