Population Health

While hospitals build wellness centers, insurers too are investing in programs that have moved beyond tobacco-free living sessions and gym membership benefits.

Over 300 healthcare and patient advocacy organizations sent a letter to Senate and House leaders on Thursday urging them to press the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to permanently withdraw a reduced Part B drug payment model from consideration.

Consumers were urged to buy policies in their 50s, because premiums rose the longer they waited. About 4.8 million people were covered by long-term care policies in 2014. But insurers botched just about every aspect of the policies they sold in the early days of the industry, said Joseph Belth, a retired professor of insurance at Indiana University known as one of the insurance industry's toughest critics.

Population health outfit Caradigm has announced it will be forming what it calls a Care Transformation Team that it claims will help improve the outcomes of population health initiatives for the providers it serves.

Medical groups have already started educating their members about the law and other end-of-life options. The California Medical Association issued a document earlier this year that explains to doctors and patients how the law works. Many physicians are going to have to figure out how to talk to patients when the patients raise the question.

Since 2010, more than 50 rural hospitals have closed across the country and hundreds more are in fragile financial condition. Rural populations have declined, and, in many places, those that remain are largely elderly or uninsured. At the same time, congressional budget agreements and the Affordable Care Act reduced Medicare reimbursement and subsidies for the uninsured. Many rural hospitals have been unable to withstand the revenue losses. The hospital in Fredericksburg, a town of about 10,000 deep in the heart of Texas Hill Country, could easily have faced a similar fate.

Across the country, more than 50 rural hospitals have closed over the last six years, and another 283 are in fragile financial condition, according to the National Rural Health Association.

Rising prices and big-dollar medications are leading to increases in prescription drug spending, the Department of Health and Human Services has found.

Republican Iowa Governor Terry Branstad has announced expanded Medicaid coverage for eligible residents in his state through a program he is calling Medicaid modernization.

Contradictory results between how patients view home health agencies and how the government rates them are hardly unusual. One in five agencies had clinical and patient ratings that differed by two stars or more, a Kaiser Health News analysis of government records shows.