Policy and Legislation

The trend of primary care physicians earning lower wages for their services compared to specialists is not tied to the number of hours they work, according to research published in the Archives of Internal Medicine last month.

Most accountable care organizations, spurred by the Medicare Shared Savings Program, are taking four different approaches to creating new payment models, according to a new report sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has corrected $684.8 million in improper payments since FY 2010, according to an update released earlier this month on its Medicare Fee-for-Service Recovery Audit Program.

The Minnesota-based insurer sees a greater need for healthcare in rural America, as well as an increase in people on government-funded insurance programs and a decrease in physicians, and points to telehealth and telemedicine as possible solutions.

In early July, the Drug Enforcement Administration finally answered a nine-year-old petition from medical marijuana advocates asking the government to reclassify marijuana from a Schedule 1 controlled substance.

The majority of the issues that three of the four Recovery Audit Contractors (RACs) posted last week targeted hospitals.

The Institute of Medicine made recommendations last week for eight preventive services for women that health plans should be required to cover without a co-payment or cost sharing under the Affordable Care Act.

After the American Hospital Association released its Accountable Care Organization (ACO) report on start up costs, many health systems are rethinking how they want to structure their organization.

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) has released its June 2011 Data Book: Health Care Spending and the Medicare Program.

A new study in the August issue of Health Affairs found that increased public health investments at the local level can produce measurable health improvements.