All News

During a discussion, 4 panelists addressed their main issues of growing up with rare diseases, including that physicians often doubted their feelings of pain and distress.

Policy experts look at curbing healthcare spending by encouraging comparison shopping in exchange for cash back; the home healthcare industry worries about immigration policy changes; the promise of a universal flu vaccine is still elusive.

A recently published study in JAMA Internal Medicine sought to determine whether a symptom and psychosocial collaborative care intervention improves heart failure–specific health status, depression, and symptom burden in patients with heart failure.

Researchers have identified a molecular target that could allow chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy to be used in treating patients with glioblastoma. Although the heterogeneous expression of tumor-associated antigens limits the efficacy for CAR-redirected T cells for the treatment of glioblastoma, chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan 4 (CSPG4), a cell surface type 1 transmembrane protein, is highly expressed in a majority of glioblastoma specimens with limited heterogeneity.

During the 4-year time period, the rates of HIV diagnosis decreased among those aged 16 to 19 years, were stable among those aged 20 to 23, and increased among those aged 24 to 29, according to a study published by the CDC.

Mindfulness meditation is effective in treating adults with attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), according to a study published in the Journal of Attention Disorders.

Next week, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) holds its annual National Health Policy Conference in Washington, DC. The American Journal of Managed Care® spoke to David Merritt, its executive vice president of public affairs, about possible things to watch for during this event.

This week, the top managed care stories included a bipartisan group of governors releasing an outline for health reform; a report finds value-based contracts brings down prescription drug co-pays; 20 states file a lawsuit over the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.

Coverage of our peer-reviewed research and news reporting in the healthcare and mainstream press.

An investigation into same-day surgery centers uncovered deadly risks for patients; Uber is launching a medical ride sharing service; the immortality market is attracting cash as well as plenty of skeptics.

More than half of physicians find that their patients encounter coverage issues due to inaccurate information included in payer directories at least once per month, according to a survey from the American Medical Association (AMA) and LexisNexis Risk Solutions.

Since 2000, the number of patients undergoing gender-affirming surgery who identified as self-payers decreased. From 2012-2013 to 2014, coverage by Medicare and Medicaid of gender-affirming surgeries increased 3-fold.

States that implement strict laws to limit smoking in public areas and add heavy taxes on cigarettes have a lower rate of not only cigarette users, but also e-cigarette users, according to a report from NYU School of Medicine and the NYU College of Global Public Health.

In California, 1 minute of operating room (OR) time costs an average $36 to $37 per minute, according to a study published in JAMA Surgery. Hospital costs are important to understanding value-based care, and are even more critical when analyzing cost-saving interventions during surgery, the study said.

Thirty-six percent of Americans who have health coverage through the Affordable Care Act and 27% of those with Medicaid are pessimistic they will be able to keep their future coverage, according to a new Commonwealth Fund survey of 2410 adults. In addition, most believed all Americans should have the right to affordable healthcare. Those agreeing with that sentiment included 99% of Democrats, 92% of independent voters, and 82% of Republicans.

A lack of communication among older Americans and their physicians increases unnecessary healthcare spending on unneeded scans, screenings, medications, and procedures for the patient, according to a survey from the National Poll on Healthy Aging.

A proposed rule by the Trump administration to allow association health plans to sell insurance across state lines would shift 3.2 million enrollees out of the Affordable Care Act (ACA)'s individual and small group markets by 2022 and increase premiums, according to a new analysis from Avalere.

In a joint letter, several organizations urged CMS Administrator Seema Verma to allow certain accountable care organizations to continue in the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) Track 1 for a third agreement period, warning that these ACOs are not ready to take on a 2-sided risk.

State variations in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) outcomes suggest that the condition is more common in large rural areas compared with metropolitan areas, according to the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from CDC.

Thousands of people in 5 states are not paying monthly premiums towards their Medicaid benefits; the House GOP is considering a complicated, multistep budget maneuver regarding Affordable Care Act cost-sharing reductions; a report says it's time to reimagine what healthcare could look like in rural America.

CMS should use its Innovation Center to pilot a proposal from the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) to reform the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA), according to a senior fellow at Project HOPE. Gail Wilensky, PhD, writing in The New England Journal of Medicine, said a pilot based on the proposal that MedPAC submitted to Congress would provide “real-world evidence” as to whether or not its idea to eliminate the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) is an improvement.

Adults with obesity have an earlier onset of incident CVD, a greater proportion of life lived with CVD morbidity, and shorter overall survival compared with adults with normal BMI; and the proportion of adults with incident CVD events was significantly higher in adults who were classified as overweight or obese compared with adults with normal BMI, according to a study in JAMA Cardiology.

A newly published report, “Fairness in Precision Medicine,” by Kadija Ferryman, PhD, and Mikaela Pitcan, seeks to better understand how bias could impact biomedical research into precision medicine.

Aledade and Horizon Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Jersey partner to help practices take advantage of payment models that reward physicians who offer better quality care while lowering costs.

New research has found that allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is just as effective in patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma who are age 65 and older as it is in patients between the ages of 55 and 64.

Shifting provisions of infused chemotherapy from physician offices to hospital outpatient departments (HOPDs) is increasing; however spending for commerical insurers was lower for patients treated in physician offices compared with HOPDs, according to a research letter in JAMA Oncology.

An opinion piece in the Annals of Internal Medicine makes the case for shifting value-based payment models to address the issue of healthcare disparities directly into hospitals’ financial calculations, incentivizing institutions to address the issue head-on without sacrificing quality.

Pediatricians call for universal depression screening of teenagers; CDC reports on tobacco use during pregnancy and the wide disparity among states and ethnic groups; the divergence between red and blue states on health policy is widening.

Twenty states are suing the federal government challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), since the individual mandate was abolished in the tax reform law signed last December by President Donald Trump. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act eliminated the tax penalty of the ACA, without eliminating the individual mandate itself, according to the lawsuit filed Monday in US District Court in the Northern District of Texas.

A new report questions what metrics policy makers are using to evaluate whether or not children enrolled in Medicaid managed care organizations are receiving quality care, given the public investment these programs receive. The report, from the nonpartisan Georgetown University Center for Children and Families, said that state Medicaid agencies and CMS do not use 1 common measurement for measuring quality of care.