Laura Joszt, MA

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has named its new president and CEO. Richard Besser, MD, who will succeed Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, MD, who ran the foundation for 14 years before announcing she was stepping down in September 2016.

An analysis of 1.7 million men and women found that low socioeconomic status is linked to a reduction in life expectancy of 2.1 years between the ages of 40 and 85.

Early in the morning on Friday, the Senate voted along party lines (52-47) to confirm US Rep. Tom Price, R-Georgia, as secretary of HHS. President Donald Trump nominated Price with the expectation that he will lead the charge to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

Now that the Senate has confirmed US Rep. Tom Price, R-Georgia, as HHS secretary, Republicans will start to look toward making changes to the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid. Here is a look at block grants, which the GOP is considering using to reform the Medicaid program.

A judge has blocked the proposed merger of Anthem and Cigna, saying consolidation would likely result in higher prices and have other anticompetitive effects. The ruling comes just 2 weeks after another judge blocked the Aetna-Humana merger.

Payment reform in the United States has been going on for years, and a panel at the AcademyHealth National Health Policy Conference analyzed how much progress has been made to move away from fee-for-service, and what the evidence on alternative payment models has found.

A treatment for juvenile Batten disease has been tested in a mouse model and the results have shown reduced in symptoms and improved longevity. The results of the study were published in Nature Communications.

Early discharge from the emergency department resulted in more than 10,000 Medicare patients dying, annually. Researchers determined that low-volume hospitals actually had higher rates of early death.

Amgen's Repatha was shown to reduce the risk of cardiovascular events, such as cardiovascular death and myocardial infarction, in phase 3 of the FOURIER study. Full results will be presented in March 2017 at the American College of Cardiology 66th Scientific Sessions.

A review of 15 disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) for the treatment of relapsing-remitting and primary-progressive multiple sclerosis (MS) has found that prices for most of these drugs are not well-aligned with added value for patients.

During a plenary session at the AcademyHealth National Health Policy Conference, Senator Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, discussed the Affordable Care Act and efforts to replace it or at least change it.

CMS has tried to improve patient experience by tying payments to performance as part of the Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) program; however, a paper published in Health Affairs found no evidence that the program has had a beneficial effect.

Senator Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, provides his plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, which includes expanding the use of health savings accounts and allowing health insurance to be sold and purchased across state lines.

A new healthcare reform legislation was introduced Monday by Bill Cassidy, MD, R-Louisiana, and Susan Collins, R-Maine. The proposed Patient Freedom Act would not fully repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), but instead, would place more power in the hands of the states by giving them the option of staying with the ACA or choosing another option.

The US District Court for the District of Columbia has blocked the Aetna-Humana merger on the grounds it is anticompetitive.

With the Affordable Care Act poised to become repealed, or at least changed, researchers sought to understand the health and healthcare utilization of people at risk to lose their insurance.

After his inauguration, President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order ordering federal agencies to ease the burden of his predecessor’s landmark healthcare law.

Despite being up to 15 times more likely to be HIV positive, people with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and major depression with psychosis aren’t much more likely than the general population to be tested for the virus.

The abortion rate in the United States hit a historic low in 2014 with 2 likely contributing factors: improved access to contraceptives and increased restrictions to abortion services.

Among the 9 new orphan drugs approved by the FDA in 2016 were 3 treatments for rare diseases that, so far, had no approved treatments: Duchenne muscular dystrophy, spinal muscular atrophy, and severe hepatic veno-occlusive disease.

Since patients with COPD often have other comorbidities, researchers sought to understand patient adherence to maintenance COPD medications and adherence to treat other chronic conditions.

The continued segmentation of the US healthcare system has resulted in a majority of spending on behavioral health disorders being attributed to treatment of the physical comorbidities.

Researchers have found that accountable care organizations with a higher proportion of minority patients tend to score worse on Medicare’s quality performance measures.

Rising healthcare expenditures, leading to increased consumer cost sharing, is a top concern in healthcare that crosses party lines. In a new commentary in JAMA Internal Medicine, A. Mark Fendrick, MD, and Michael E. Chernew, PhD, co-editors-in-chief of The American Journal of Managed Care, highlighted the need for a “smarter” deductible.

As the team at CMS prepares to hand the reins over to the next administration, Andy Slavitt, acting administrator of CMS, took the time to speak with Mandi Bishop, MA, CEO of Aloha Health, in the latest podcast of Managed Care Cast about what he learned in his role and what the next administration should keep in mind.

An increasing prevalence of type 2 diabetes and poor glycemic control among youth in the United States has highlighted the need for early detection of prediabetes.

Caring at home for children with special healthcare needs brings high costs to families. A study by researchers at the University of Southern California, Boston Children’s Hospital, and RAND Corp., placed the uncompensated medical cost at nearly $36 billion annually.

January 1, 2017, marks the beginning of a new way of being paid in Medicare. And while the final rule of MACRA was released in October, and many providers and practices are still trying to parse out what it will mean to them.

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.