Laura Joszt, MA

Although chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) remains a leading cause of death around the world, the reason for why patients with COPD lose the ability to repair damage to their lungs is poorly defined. However, researchers at the Helmholtz Zentrium München may now have an idea of why this happens.

More than half of Americans may be satisfied with the total cost they pay for healthcare, but cost remains the biggest issue people have with healthcare overall in the United States.

During the December Managed Care Cast hosted by Patricia Salber, the guest was Joe Antos, PhD, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, who discussed potential changes to healthcare and the realities of repeal and replace under President-elect Donald J. Trump’s administration.

Articles on physicians with business degrees, a popular diabetes drug, and alcohol as an antidepressant may not seem to have a lot in common, but they were popular on social media in 2016.

CMS is moving full-steam ahead with the transition to value-based care. On Tuesday, the agency announced 3 new bundled payment models in cardiac care, an expansion on the Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement Model, and the highly anticipated new track in the Medicare Shared Savings Program.

Along with the peer-review research, journal articles, and news coverage, The American Journal of Managed Careâ„¢ (AJMCâ„¢) has a robust multimedia component that brings together stakeholders from across the healthcare industry to discuss important topics in the world of managed care and delve deeper into topics.

Two former executives at a generic pharmaceutical company have been charged with being involved with price-fixing, bid-rigging, and customer allocation conspiracies. The charges are the first that have resulted from a 2-year investigation of the generic drug industry.

In general, older adults (over the age of 55) in the United States tend to have a higher well-being compared with the broader adult population. Older Americans have better eating habits, fewer financial worries, and more community pride.

In Hennepin County, Minnesota, which has one-fifth of the state’s population, the government has worked with the healthcare system to create a different way to care for people.

The United States is in the midst of an opioid epidemic that has been responsible for a 200% increase in deaths due to overdose of heroin or an opioid pain reliever since 2000. Guidelines provide clinicians with ways to identify patients at risk of opioid use disorder and best practices of prescribing opioids.

During the keynote speech at the inaugural conference of The National Center for Complex Health and Social Needs, Geoffrey Canada, president of the Harlem Children's Zone, discussed the challenge of addressing health disparities in poor communities.

Creating effective interventions to care for complex populations and making them available is only half the battle. That was the lesson gleaned from a workshop session at The National Center for Complex Health and Social Needs’ Putting Care at the Center conference, held December 7-9 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

During the first plenary session of Putting Care at the Center, the inaugural conference of The National Center for Complex Health and Social Needs, panelists discussed building new models to care for high-need, high-cost patients.

Value-based insurance design (VBID) is one of just a few areas that has bipartisan support, and now the concept of VBID is being brought to TRICARE, the healthcare program of the United States Department of Defense Military Health System.

In a show of bipartisanship, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the 21st Century Cures Act on November 30 by a vote of 392-26. Here are 5 things to know about the legislation.

There is little patient benefit to using granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) to help white blood cell growth and reduce the risk of infection in women with breast cancer, according to a study published in Journal of Clinical Oncology.

How receptive Americans are to certain public health initiatives to improve personal and community health varies a lot depending on the beliefs they hold regarding government involvement and health.

Uncertainty was the theme of the day during the 21st annual "Wall Street Comes to Washington" roundtable, hosted by the Leonard D. Schaeffer Initiative for Innovation in Health Policy.

Donald Trump's election stunned many and made the prospect of Obamacare being repealed almost a certainty. Here's a look at 5 key points in Trump’s healthcare reform proposals.

By a large margin, voters in Colorado defeated a proposal to replace the Affordable Care Act with a single-payer system in the state.

As the Republicans retained control of both the House and the Senate and Donald J. Trump was declared the next president of the United States, it became abundantly clear that President Barack Obama’s landmark healthcare reform legislation was in grave danger.

Medicaid programs throughout the country cover tobacco cessation therapies, but utilization of these benefits tends to be low and varies among states, according to a study published in the CDC’s Preventing Chronic Disease.

Prices rising for the same drug across multiple pharmaceutical companies might be the result of collusion, according to a letter sent to the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission from Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, and Representative Elijah Cummings, D-Maryland.

Low-value care can harm consumers both financially and physically. During the final panel at the VBID Summit, speakers discussed how to address and reduce low-value care.

Various stakeholders in the healthcare industry are trying to determine value in healthcare, and speakers representing the pharmaceutical industry, research, and the patient perspective discussed the topic during the VBID Summit.

Underinsurance is a byproduct of the many changes being brought to the healthcare system, said Robert W. Dubois, MD, PhD, chief science officer and executive vice president of the National Pharmaceutical Council, during a session at the VBID Summit.

Speakers at the VBID Summit discuss health equity and applying value-based benefit design principles to provide quality care at a lower cost.

Working under the assumption that the outcome of the presidential race is pretty set, Avik S. A. Roy and John E. McDonough, DrPH, MPA, pondered the potential health policy changes during a Hillary Clinton presidency with a Republican-controlled Congress.

Healthfirst's Medicare Advantage members are largely low income, and actually poorer than its Medicaid members. In order to reach these members and foster trust, Healthfirst makes itself a part of the fabric of the community.

The Affordable Care Act’s changes in payment and reduction in benchmarks in Medicare Advantage raised questions about the future of the program that ended up being unfounded, said Sean Cavanaugh, deputy administrator and director of the Center for Medicare at CMS, during the opening keynote at America’s Health Insurance Plans’ National Conference on Medicare, held October 24-25 in Washington, DC.