Policy and Legislation
Since the Affordable Care Act was created, critics have argued that the healthcare law fails to contain healthcare costs. A new brief from the Urban Institute presents evidence illustrating the ACA's cost containment measures, but leaves room for the debate to continue.
The National Quality Forum (NQF) announced Monday it has endorsed 10 behavioral health quality measures aimed at addressing such issues as alcohol and tobacco abuse, antipsychotic medication adherence and follow-up after hospitalization for mental illness.
A new global study by the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics identifies six levers that can be used to increase medication adherence, possibly saving some $500 billion in healthcare spending worldwide.
Physicians who treat Medicaid patients will get a pay raise in two months when Medicaid reimbursement rates becoming equal to Medicare reimbursement rates for primary care services.
On Thursday, the American Hospital Association (AHA) and four other hospital systems filed a suit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for refusing to meet its financial obligations for hospital care services provided to certain Medicare patients.
As the federal government evaluates state demonstrations for providing Medicare-Medicaid eligible Americans with better, more cost-effective care, a new study suggests that large savings will be elusive without specialized models and some improvisation.
With concern over primary care shortages not likely to abate any time soon, the debate over using nurse practitioners to fill in the gaps continues. A new policy brief released by Health Affairs last month outlines the issues.
At the same time the government is encouraging healthcare providers, doctors and insurance companies to digitize healthcare information, the landscape for attacking that info is increasing dramatically. One industry insider provides seven tips for how to prevent a data breach.
The House Republican plan to repeal President Barack Obama's health law and turn Medicaid into a block grant program would save the federal government $1.7 trillion from 2013 to 2022, a 38-percent spending reduction, according to a recent report by the Urban Institute for the Kaiser Family Foundation.
A new report finds that the uncertainty caused by a congressional history of last-minute reprieves from Medicare sustainable growth rate (SGR) payment cuts has held back physician practices from participating in new Medicare payment and delivery models.