Health Care Delivery

The largest health insurance carriers in each Affordable care Act marketplace had a 75% higher premium increase from 2014 to 2015 compared with other same-state carriers.

Preventing hospital readmissions has long been an important general focus in the healthcare field-and this importance increases tenfold when it comes to children's health.

Diabetes is a growing epidemic in the United States and new research has indicated that half of healthy 45-year-olds will develop pre-diabetes and one-third will develop diabetes at some point.

The American College of Physicians has published a paper in the Annals of Internal Medicine that advices clinicians to prescribe generic drugs whenever possible.

Telehealth has great potential to improve access to healthcare, but the promise of the technology depends on a number of factors, such as modernization of policy frameworks and communications infrastructures.

This Thanksgiving, as families gather around the table, health and wellness should be a topic of discussion.

What we're reading, November 25, 2015: UnitedHealthcare's decision on healthcare exchange participation, Democratic Presidential candidate's health plan, and conflict of interest between soda company and anti-obesity research group.

What we're reading, November 25, 2015: hospitals can save money in the long run by preventing hospital-acquired infections with private rooms; Arizona's co-op plans to close December 31; and study finds testing prison inmates for hepatitis C is extremely cost-effective.

Despite changes to the United States healthcare system, Americans' overall satisfaction with the total cost they pay for healthcare has been stable over the past 14 years, according to a Gallup survey, which also found little changes in satisfaction with healthcare quality and coverage.

Physician interest in concierge and other direct patient contracting practices is driven by frustration with reimbursement and billing hassles and a desire to spend more time with patients, but there is limited evidence on these practices' impact on cost, quality, and access to care.

Workers give low marks to the US healthcare system based primarily on cost, but rate their own plans favorably.

A state-led program, initiated in 2003, has nearly doubled screening colonoscopy rates in New York City and also eliminated racial and ethnic disparities in the process.

What we're reading, November 23, 2015: Oregon and California both pass laws that authorize pharmacists to prescribe birth control; the US and Europe are approving more drugs; and Turing discounts Daraprim just 50% and only for hospitals.

CMS has announced proposed changes to the 2017 health insurance marketplaces aimed at providing choice and competition for consumers and improvements in consumer experience.

The future of patient engagement in healthcare will be mobile, which should also help reduce healthcare disparities as more and more less-fortunate groups adopt smartphones, said Joseph C. Kvedar, MD, vice president of Connected Health at Partners HealthCare.

While the 340B Drug Pricing Program was designed to help facilities that take care of impoverished patients with low-cost drugs, what the program has morphed into is almost the opposite of what it was intended to do, said Peter Bach, MD, MPP, director of Memorial Sloan Kettering's Center for Health Policy and Outcomes.

The HHS Pharmaceutical Forum brought together a diverse set of stakeholders to share ideas on delivering affordable but high-quality care, improving outcomes, and continuing to lead in innovation. Here are 5 things that came out of the daylong meeting.

At the Patient-Centered Oncology Care 2015 meeting, held November 19-20, 2015, in Baltimore, Maryland, keynote speaker Julie M. Vose, MD, MBA, FASCO, president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology provided perspectives on the challenges faced by oncologists as the healthcare system transitions to define and incorporate value in the care delivered.

Rates of uninsured individuals vary dramatically across the country, and while some states made huge gains in covered individuals, others have lagged behind.

Due to poor performance in the Affordable Care Act's health insurance exchange's, UnitedHealth Group is considered pulling its plans from the exchanges in 2017.

Eligibility for prescription coverage and family income significantly influenced women's decisions to continue hormonal therapy and prevent recurrence of breast cancer, the authors found.

What we're reading, November 19, 2015: the American Medical Association is calling for a ban on direct-to-consumer television advertisement of prescription drugs and popular silver plans on HealthCare.gov have largest premium increases.

The American Society of Clinical Oncology has made public its detailed guidance to CMS, supporting implementation of physician-focused and other alternative payment models under MACRA.

CMS has made available $32 million in funds to support efforts to further reduce the rate of uninsured children who are eligible for Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program.

Many nonprofit hospitals have "far from perfect" performance on a requirement of the Affordable Care Act to notify patients who qualify for charity care.