Health Care Delivery

Healthcare spending growth between 2014 and 2024 is projected to be substantially lower than the 3 decades prior to 2008, according to a new report from CMS. In addition, the average premium for a basic Medicare Part D prescription plan will remain stable in 2016.

Increasing health insurance enrollment is only one part of the goal of the Affordable Care Act-the law also aims to improve population health and lower healthcare costs, but less attention has been paid to these critical steps.

A quirk in Alaska law allowed Governor Bill Walker to move ahead without support from the legislature.

While growing marketplace enrollment in state-based exchanges is important, retaining enrollees is equally so, and a new report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute analyzed the renewal process for 6 states.

Officials say the number of enrollees and their relative good health made it possible to negotiate lower rate increases. However, premium increases are higher in Northern California, where there is less competition.

The HHS Secretary told the National Governors Association that she needed their help in fighting substance abuse and in moving the healthcare system from a volume-based to a value-based system.

The high cost of running a state-based health insurance exchanges created under the Affordable Care Act could lead to states turning over operations to the federal government or joining forces with other states.

This week Bristol-Myers Squibb's phase 3 nivolumab study ended early because renal cell carcinoma patients were experiencing significantly better overall survival, the American Society of Clinical Oncology called for the inclusion of more geriatric patients in trials, and Medicaid expansion states are finding more people enrolling than they planned.

Some safety-net hospitals are seeing the best bottom lines in years. But for those in states that refused to expand Medicaid, little has changed.

Despite concerns that an increasing number of insured individuals could mean longer wait times for doctors' appointments, a new study found that the availability for primary care physicians improved for individuals obtaining Medicaid improved in Michigan after the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

The Exchange Pulse Report published by Express Scripts predicts that compared with 2014, the year 2015 will see a greater number of younger enrollees signing up on healthcare exchanges, which could potentially drive down drug costs for specialty medications.

In a pattern repeated among those who gained insurance on the Marketplace exchanges, it's clear the uninsured had more pent-up medical needs than policymakers realized.

The Affordable Care Act mandated an end to cost sharing for mammograms and colonoscopies if these screenings were preventive. So far, according to a study just published in The American Journal of Managed Care, the change has had little impact, but the verdict may still be out.

Nearly 50 years after President Johnson signed the law that created them, Medicare and Medicaid have become part of the fabric of the US healthcare system. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll finds little support for proposals to alter the basic structure of the programs.

A report released by the healthcare research group Avalere Health claims that health insurance exchanges have a significantly narrow network compared with their commercial counterparts.

The Government Accountability Office received notices of inconsistent information, but it wasn't enough for CMS to cancel coverage for the phony beneficiaries. A key flaw revealed is the ability of phony applicants to use the telephone to bypass online controls.

The ACA eliminated patient cost sharing for evidence-based preventive care, yet this policy has not resulted in substantial increases in colonoscopy and mammography utilization.

Although Hispanic adults were more likely to have a consistent place of care in 2014 compared with 2013, they were still more likely to experience difficulty in accessing and utilizing care than the non-Hispanic population.

Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt says the Fraud Prevention System has yielded a 10-to-1 return for taxpayers

An interview with The American Journal of Managed Care about the PAN Challenge grant.

While new care delivery models have provided better support for patients, there are still many patients who still face challenges with the complexity of treatment, explained Daniel J. Klein, president and chief executive officer of the Patient Access Network (PAN) Foundation.

The newly insured came to Medicaid with medical issues that had gone unaddressed for years. The same problem has been cited by insurers who have asked for large rate increases for 2016 for plans on the exchanges.

The 17th annual HealthCare's Most Wire Survey indicates that hospitals are beginning to utilize information technology to send and share information across care settings.

CDC report estimates that the Affordable Care Act could lead to 111,000 fewer new coronary heart disease events and 95,000 fewer CVD-related deaths by 2050.

President Barack Obama has nominated Andy Slavitt to become the new administrator of CMS.