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Kathleen Sebelius handed leadership of the Health and Human Services Department to her successor on Monday and wished new Secretary Sylvia Matthews Burwell the best of luck.

Patients who want to compare prices for prostate-cancer surgery may find it rough going: a study has found a 13-fold difference in prices quoted by 100 hospitals across the United States. Moreover, most provided little more than broad estimates, and only three gave a hard copy of the charges.

The continued advances in cancer treatment are improving patient survival, but the healthcare industry is bursting at its seams.

Taiho Pharmaceutical Co., parent company of Taiho Oncology, announced recently that its combination drug for refractory metastatic colorectal cancer met its primary endpoint in a phase 3 global RECOURSE trial.

From coast to coast, people say that their health coverage and care are too expensive.

The federal health-care law was intended to create a uniform standard of health coverage across the U.S. But the law also is creating opportunities for states to pursue their own solutions.

New studies suggest that privately insured patients may receive better cancer care than Medicaid beneficiaries. Although a variety of factors impact patient access to cancer treatment, low-income patients were found to have greater difficulty with navigating health systems.

Cleveland Clinic CEO Dr. Toby Cosgrove will not take over the scandal-ridden Veterans Affairs Department and will remain in his current job.

Weight loss surgery might have more value than simply helping morbidly obese people to shed unhealthy extra pounds. It reduces their risk of cancer to rates almost similar to those of people of normal weight.

With specialty pharmaceuticals carrying extremely high-and rising-costs, nonadherence and discontinuation of therapy is becoming even more commonplace. The value-based insurance design (V-BID) model, so termed by A. Mark Fendrick, MD, Dean Smith, PhD, and Michael Chernew, MD, promotes personalized patient care by easing access to specialty medications while reducing the number of prescribed treatments of lesser value as a replacement.

Deneen Vojta, MD, UnitedHealth Group, says that the healthcare landscape is shifting to delivery models that focus on greater value-based care, such as accountable care models.

Teresa Pearson, MS, RN, CDE, Innovative Health Care Designs, LLC, uses her experience as a diabetes educator to discuss how community care teams can build an effective virtual healthcare delivery system.

Jan Berger, MD, MJ, moderates a discussion on the evolution of the diabetes care team. She is joined by Starlin Haydon-Greatting, MS, BSPharm, FAPhA , Geoffrey Joyce, PhD, Edmund Pezalla, MD, MPH, and Rebecca Killion, MA.

The White House is considering Toby Cosgrove, MD, president and CEO, Cleveland Clinic, to be the next secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

A study conducted at the GW Cancer Institute identified issues faced by cancer care institutes in adopting patient-centered care programs.

Pristine nanotubes produced through a new process can be modified to carry drugs to tumors through gaps in blood-vessel walls that larger particles cannot fit through. The nanotubes may then target and infiltrate the cancerous cells' nuclei, where the drugs can be released through sonication.

Accountable Care Organizations have given little attention to surgery in the early years of the Medicare program, choosing to focus instead on managing chronic conditions and reducing hospital readmissions.

Medicaid enrollment surged by more than 1 million people in April, bringing the total growth in the state-federal health insurance program for the poor since September to about 6 million, the Obama administration said Wednesday.

Onartuzumab (MetMab)did not improve PFS when combined with erlotinib (Tarceva) in the METLung trial.

This panel, led by moderator Dennis Scanlon, PhD, Penn State University, asks the question, "Why should a payer or a plan be involved in patient care?" Dr Scanlon is joined by panelists Teresa Pearson, MS, RN, CDE, FAADE; Deneen Vojta, MD; Todd Prewitt, MD, FAAFP; and Amy Tenderich.

The Senate cleared the way for lawmakers to decide on Thursday whether to confirm Sylvia Mathews Burwell as secretary of health and human services.

Health insurance exchanges continue to be a work in progress, at least for several states that are facing ongoing challenges. In particular, 5 states-Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, and Oregon-estimate that it will cost $240 million to fix their existing exchanges, or to transition to using the federal exchange.

The American Society of Clinical Oncology's algorithm to help oncologists evaluate the clinical benefits, side effects and costs of a cancer drug or therapy will be fine-tuned over the summer and should be available for public comment by the fall, said Dr. Lowell Schnipper, chair of the society's Value in Cancer Care Task Force.

A physician-scientist who developed a personalized immunotherapy for leukemia using patients' own T cells is the recipient of the 2014 Taubman Prize for Excellence in Translational Medical Science, awarded by the A. Alfred Taubman Medical Research Institute at the University of Michigan Medical School.

Despite promising results, experts believe it's too early to use ipilimumab for early-stage melanoma, high toxicity being one of the limiting factors.

Robert Gabbay, MD, PhD, discusses the changes he wishes to see in the healthcare system that he calls a "journey toward quality," and with his work at the Joslin Diabetes Center, he dreams of ridding the world of diabetes by implementing innovation.

Lilly's CYRAMZA (ramucirumab) significantly improved overall survival in phase 3 non-small cell lung cancer study. Results from the REVEL trial were published in The Lancet and also presented at ASCO 2014.

Starlin Haydon-Greatting, MS, BSPharm, claims that pharmacist education has changed; by furthering education and credentials, a pharmacist's role in the healthcare world can extend far beyond what were once thought to be the traditional roles of the pharmacist. Pharmacists' involvement in programs such as the Medication Therapy Management, for example, can have a positive impact on health management in general.

Jan Berger, MD, MJ, begins the discussion by asking the panelists what they believe to be the biggest challenge in addressing diabetes.