Insurance

Medicare overpaid physicians $6.7 billion in 2010 for evaluation and management services, HHS' Office of Inspector General said in a study released Thursday.

There are rumblings that federal lawmakers may be willing to repeal Medicare's burdensome rule requiring physicians in critical access hospitals to make an educated guess that the patients they're admitting will be either discharged or transferred in less than four days.

Advocates for a single-payer Medicare for all health system are fanning out across Capitol Hill this week, lobbying members of Congress.

The patient-centered medical home model in Arkansas, which has more than 600 participating providers, helps the state's Medicaid program incentivize quality care instead of paying for volume of services.

A new study estimates that it would cost Medicare about $2 billion a year to screen certain current and former heavy smokers for lung cancer.

A CMS ruling would force healthcare providers to enroll in Medicare by June 1, 2015, if they plan to prescribe medications that are paid for by the program. The agency said in a report that changes to Medicare Part D were necessary in order to cut down on inappropriate prescription practices and to improve patient safety.

Analysis of the impact of individual features of the patient-centered medical home care model on future healthcare expenditures among Medicare beneficiaries.

Every person covered by Medicare would shell out an additional $3 a month if the government agreed to pay to screen certain current and former smokers for lung cancer, a new study estimates.

Avik Roy, senior fellow, Manhattan Institute, says that the problem with the community rating provision is that age bands can make insurance costly for young patients.

Emerging health models all focus on 2 things in transforming care delivery: quality and cost-effectiveness. In order to achieve those standards, providers must adopt practices which support value, and cut those services or procedures that don't.

One in four Medicare patients got medical care at least once in 2009 that provided no benefit at a total cost of at least $1.9 billion, newly published research suggests.

A left-leaning think tank whose research is often taken seriously by backers of the health-care overhaul has published a paper suggesting the administration should scrap the health law's requirement that employers offer coverage or pay a penalty.

Final rule reduces burdens to critical access hospitals, rural clinics; loosens physician supervision requirements.

Attendees at the 167th Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), convening at the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York City, appreciated Sunday's opportunity to hash out practical day-to-day issues at Meet the Author: Evidence-Based Guide to Antidepressant Medications and Antipsychotic Medications, with editor Anthony J. Rothschild, MD, director of the Center for Psychopharmacologic Research and Treatment, at University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Since the Obama administration launched its accountable care initiative as part of healthcare reform in 2012, the CMS has announced which hospital and physician networks in one of the programs have met cost targets and received shared savings. But so far, it has published little data on quality of care delivered by these networks, which were designed to deliver better care as well as lower costs for Medicare patients.

The Obama administration says the number of Medicare patients returning to hospitals within 30 days fell further in 2013, amounting to 150,000 fewer readmissions since January 2012.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) reported that between 2002 and 2010, elderly healthcare spending grew at the slowest rate among all age groups, which, according to CMS, can be attributed to the recession.

Anthony J. Rothschild, MD, says that barriers to expensive antipsychotic drugs are shortsighted. He adds that the American Psychiatric Association, in accordance with some in Congress, recently rejected a CMS decision that would have restricted the number of antidepressants and antipsychotics Medicare beneficiaries could receive.

Despite the considerable resources designated to PCORI, its future remains tenuous.

The CMS intends increase Medicare payments to hospices and also make several tweaks to policy definitions and procedures to ensure more accurate reimbursement.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed a rule this week that would reduce payments for hospital readmissions and hospital-acquired conditions in 2015.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services late Wednesday issued a proposed rule for 2015 that reduces payment for readmissions and hospital-acquired conditions, but provides no changes to the controversial two-midnight rule.

An advisory panel to the CMS voted against recommending an annual low-dose CT scan for high-risk individuals citing no benefit over the harm of false-positives.