Mary Caffrey

A spokesman for The Obesity Society said that lack of payer coverage for obesity may discourage physicians from recording body mass index and making a formal diagnosis.

A healthcare economist explains that not all experiments with new payment models need to succeed, because failure can show the system what not to do.

Audits, consumer education, and help for states were among the recommendations to force better compliance with the 2008 law, which seeks to ensure that coverage for mental health or substance abuse disorders mirrors other benefits in a health plan.

The study identifies a potential drug target to treat diabetes.

The Affordable Care Act called for making it easier for practices to pursue models like collaborative care by allowing physicians to bill for it.

The program has been shown to reduce by 58% the likelihood of progressing to type 2 diabetes. Reimbursement details are still being worked out, but CMS clarified that Medicare patients will not be subject to cost-sharing.

The WalletHub scores examine overall obesity rates, health indicators such as diabetes and cholesterol, and habits such as fruit and vegetable consumption.

Gains in health coverage for children have been steady since 2008, but they picked up steam after 2013.

The annual campaign from the American Diabetes Association raises awareness of the public health crisis that is diabetes and the people living with the disease.

The updated position statement comes after a wave of recent research linking long periods of sedentary activity with poor health outcomes.

Congress would have to approve some recommendations from the White House task force, which seeks to levy fines against health plans that do not follow the 2008 law.

Frustration with high prescription drug prices remains an issue that cuts across party lines. Majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and independents want the government to protect access to high-cost treatments for those with chronic conditions.

The connection between soda consumption and rising rates of diabetes and obesity has been well established. The World Health Organization has called for soda taxes and marketing limits, especially for advertising aimed at children.

The healthcare news outlet STAT went to court to unseal records that show officials with West Virginia's state employee health plan were derailed in their early efforts to slow access to OxyContin.

The findings highlight the need for collaborative care, which has support in the proposed 2017 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule.

Challenges outlined by healthcare experts back in 2010 are coming to pass, as young adults do not see the current penalties for going without coverage as enough incentive to become insured.

Ralph McDade, PhD, Myriad RBM's president, explained earlier this year how the precision medicine approach, pioneered in oncology, was finding its way into the cardiovascular arena, and that it could ultimately lead to develop of a risk panel that would make the ELIXA trial simpler and less costly.

A year after its high-profile arrival in New Jersey, Horizon's OMNIA plan will give most enrollees premium increases of 5% to 6%-far less than the 25% average increase announced in a report from HHS.

Lawmakers have been working on the problem of what to do about out-of-network bills that result from emergency room care for more than a year.

While the link between stress and medication adherence is well known, this study attempted to measure how much stress affected adherence.

Panelists in the Healthcare 2020 series discuss the challenges with the exchanges that will be waiting for the next president, the future of Medicaid expansion, and how the complexity of so many models is burdening ACOs.

Current work seeks to perfect the algorithm that would someday let the insulin pump automatically make the multitude of delivery decisions that would have been made by a healthy pancreas. Advances are happening alongside a shifting landscape in payer coverage, with advocates worried that they might lack choice amid so much innovation.

The study of teenagers found that the risk of early death from diabetes increased at BMI levels below the cutoff for what is considered "normal" in adults.

The assessment comes after HHS has put months of effort into attracting young, uninsured adults, including those who have previously paid a penalty for not being insured and those who are likely eligible for financial assistance.

The findings in Diabetologia separate the effects of activity from diet and other behaviors across 23 studies covering more than 1 million people.

Seventy Americans and 9 international members were elected to the National Academy of Medicine this week.

The findings of a poll of emergency department physicians were presented at American College of Emergency Physicians' annual Scientific Assembly, which is meeting in Las Vegas.

The initiative comes as consumers move away from soda toward healthier beverages. Pepsi, in particular, has seen declining sales, and voters in several US cities will decide on soda taxes on November 8, 2016.

Rates of liver cancer have steadily climbed alongside rising rates of obesity and diabetes, leading researchers to investigate links among the conditions.

Gaining too much weight during pregnancy can bring serious health consequences.