Policy and Legislation
Forty-five percent of young adults said healthcare cost considerations caused them to forgo necessary medical treatments in 2010, up from 32 percent in 2001, according to a new report from The Commonwealth Fund.
A patient recruiter for a Houston-based durable medical equipment company is the latest to be convicted in court for a scheme in which Medicare was billed for wheelchairs supposedly damaged in a hurricane.
In what he described as "both an opportunity and an obligation," Vermont Gov. Pete Shumlin has signed the country's first single-payer law, setting the state on a course to be first with a publicly financed healthcare system.
The American Medical Association is calling on the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice to make changes to their proposed policy regarding antitrust enforcement of accountable care organizations so that physicians in all practice sizes can develop, lead and actively participate in ACOs.
In less than a decade, for-profit hospices have proliferated at an astounding rate, and that may be cause for concern, say the authors of "In the Business of Dying: Questioning the Commercialization of Hospice," a study released earlier this month in the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics.
Last October, the Wall Street Journal ran a damning expose about the Relative Value Scale Update Committee (RUC), a secretive, specialist-dominated panel within the American Medical Association (AMA) that, for the past two decades, has been the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS’) primary advisor on valuation of medical services.
One third of U.S. hospitals preparing to undertake construction projects already on the drawing board admit ignorance and uncertainty according to a 2011 ASHE survey.
Seven U.S. senators have asked the Department of Health and Human Services to withdraw its proposed rule governing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's accountable care organizations because "it misses the target" of better care at lower costs.
Last week’s startlingly gloomy annual report from the Trustees of the Medicare Trust Funds lent new urgency to the need for further Medicare expenditure reforms. Whether Washington DC politicians will respond with more than sound bites is less likely.
The University of Michigan's Board of Regents has set aside $13.7 million to create the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, which will focus on public health policy and an interdisciplinary approach to tackling healthcare challenges.