Policy and Legislation

The reason costs add up for these procedures could have more to do with doctors than patients, JAMA report finds.

Here is the location and public contact information for the 405 accountable care organizations now enrolled in the shared savings program.

The expansion of insurance coverage to some 10 million individuals in 2014 has implications for the growth rate in national health expenditures and on health workforce requirements. While there is broad agreement that spending and utilization will be pushed upward, there is much debate about the amounts.

This week the HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) published its annual solicitation of recommendations for new or modified safe harbor provisions under the federal anti-kickback statute, as well as potential topics for new OIG Special Fraud Alerts.

Though 2014 saw far fewer issues with Healthcare.gov, the federal government's health insurance exchange, officials are betting big that one of the industry's top firms can fix and improve the service for good.

When Healthcare Finance last year asked experts to name the top industry trends, they selected insurance exchanges, mergers and acquisitions, new payment models, and technology. Things don't look much different in 2015.

As 2014 winds down, we've taken a look back at some of the biggest stories in healthcare finance in the past year. See what you may have missed.

The bonus boosted pay rates for primary care doctors who saw Medicaid patients to the same level as they are paid by Medicare.

Healthcare.gov enrolled 1.9 million new customers for health insurance between Nov. 15 and Dec. 18. At the same time, another 4.5 million existing policyholders either re-enrolled or were automatically renewed.

The number of accountable care organizations in Medicare's Shared Savings Program will grow by 89 in January 2015, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid said this week, boosting the total participants to 405. Medicare ACOs will now serve more than 7.2 million patients.