Physicians Call for ONC to Change EHR Certification Process
January 24th 2015An American Medical Association-led coalition of 35 medical societies has urged the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to reevaluate the current electronic health record certification process.
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The Way to Improved Patient Safety, Reduced Costs Is Transparency, Report Finds
January 24th 2015Transparency throughout the healthcare system could produce safer care, better outcomes, and reduced costs of care, according to a new report from the National Patient Safety Foundation's Lucian Leape Institute.
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Bayer Wants Patient Engagement in Early Drug Development
January 23rd 2015Bayer is collaborating with MD Anderson in Texas to develop a questionnaire that will query a patient's disease-related symptoms, a step to include PROs in early drug development which could help reduce adverse effects in the final product.
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Making the Grade on Survivorship: How are Payers Performing?
January 23rd 2015As cancer care becomes more powerful and people survivor longer, cancer is becoming a chronic disease that patients need to learn how to live with and remain productive. Although the role of payers in survivorship isn't fully baked yet, there is more focus in the area, according to Ira Klein, MD, MBA, FACP, chief medical officer at Aetna.
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When Is the Right Time for Palliative Care?
January 23rd 2015The Patient-Centered Oncology Care 2014 meeting started off with a talk by Marian Grant, DNP, RN, CRNP, of the University of Maryland School of Nursing, on the topic of palliative care. Although palliative care is appropriate for patients of all ages and in any stage of a serious illness and can be provided alongside curative or disease-modifying treatments, she says she often gets called in very late to offer palliative care to patients.
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Early Detection, Cutting Edge Treatments for Breast Cancer Patients
January 23rd 2015In 2 interviews with Physicians' Education Resource, LLC, award-winning journalist Joan Lunden and Patrick I. Borgen, MD, of Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY, discuss breast cancer in advance of the 32nd Annual Miami Breast Cancer Conference.
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Vitiligo Could Be a Marker of Efficacy for Melanoma Drugs, Study Indicates
January 23rd 2015The retrospective analysis conducted in stage 3 and 4 immunotherapy-treated melanoma patients found that the development of vitiligo could serve as a clinical marker for effective antimelanoma immunity and improved clinical outcome.
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Medicaid Reimbursement Increases Improved Access to Care
January 22nd 2015The Affordable Care Act's mandate to increase Medicaid reimbursement to primary care providers has improved access to care for Medicaid enrollees, according to analysis of early evidence published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
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1700 Hospitals Win Quality Bonuses From Medicare, But Most Will Never Collect
January 22nd 2015Medicare is giving bonuses to a majority of hospitals that it graded on quality, but many of those rewards will be wiped out by penalties the government has issued for other shortcomings, federal data show.
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Iowa's Branstad to Hire Managed Care Firms for Medicaid Program
January 22nd 2015Iowa's unique brand of Medicaid expansion and its efforts to improve mental health delivery gained notice in 2014. The announcement this week had few details except that it seeks to save $51.3 million in first half of 2016.
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Narrow Networks at a Flash Point in California
January 22nd 2015With healthcare payers increasingly relying on narrow provider networks to contain costs and achieve quality, California regulators are pressing health plans to blunt out-of-network costs and maintain accurate provider directories.
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State of the Union Calls for More Investments in Personalized Medicine
January 21st 2015In Tuesday night's State of the Union address, President Barack Obama did not spend a lot of time discussing healthcare, but he did highlight medical research and a growing field of medicine by announcing his new Precision Medicine Initiative.
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Sen Hatch Vows to Dismantle Health Law
January 21st 2015The new Republican chairman of the Senate Finance Committee says the GOP will chip away at Obamacare "piece by piece." Still, he says he will work with Democrats to continue funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program and overhauling Medicare pay for doctors.
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