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One of the hot new cancer immunotherapy drugs, Merck & Co's Keytruda, strongly benefited patients with melanoma, lung cancer and mesothelioma, according to 3 studies presented at the American Association for Cancer Research conference.

Governor Rick Scott's decision to sue CMS could harm an opportunity to expand a pilot program in Medicaid managed care first championed by former Republican Governor Jeb Bush, which was found to save $118 million a year. It was praised by the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Patients in states that expanded Medicaid eligibility had 25.4% more prescriptions filled than in 2013, compared with a 2.8% prescription increase in states that did not expand eligibility.

CMS has introduced star ratings based on patient experiences on Hospital Compare to make it easier for consumers to choose a hospital and understand the quality of care they deliver.

Improvements in quality of care and patient safety in hospitals have saved $12 billion from 2011-2013, according to a new report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. However, while disparities in access to care are diminishing, they still remain.

In the usual cancer biopsy, a surgeon cuts out a piece of the patient's tumor, but researchers in labs across the country are now testing a potentially transformative innovation. They call it the liquid biopsy.

Fifteen states are betting they can convince more doctors to accept the growing number of patients covered by Medicaid with a simple incentive: more money.

HHS' Office for Civil Rights (OCR) could hand down some whopping fines for HIPAA violations later this year, privacy attorney Adam Greene told govinfosecurity.com in an interview.

A study of 8 states that chose to expand Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act found budget savings of $1.8 billion as well as revenue gains by the end of 2015, just one-and-a-half years into expansion.

An experimental lung cancer pill from AstraZeneca delays disease progression by more than a year, according to new data presented at European Lung Cancer Conference.

A one-minute look at managed care news during the week of April 13, 2015, including a the official repeal of the sustainable growth rate formula and a look at the rising cost of generic drugs.

After months of anticipation, the FDA has approved a generic version of Copaxone, which means Momenta Pharmaceuticals and Sandoz can now sell a knockoff of a drug that generated more than $3.1 billion in sales in the US last year.

To help them spread out their bills in a more manageable way Covered California, the state's insurance exchange, may require insurers to cap the monthly cost of each expensive specialty prescription at $500.

Soaring e-cigarette use will likely increase momentum for FDA's proposed regulation of the product, which critics say is being heavily marketed at teenagers.

The study, in more than 250,000 women, found that combining Pap test with HPV screening works best in identifying women with cervical cancer and reduces the possibility of false negatives.

In the first year of Medicare's Pioneer Accountable Care Organization program, the 32 participating provider organizations achieved a 1.2% savings while maintaining or improving performance on measures of quality of patient care.

While the effect of pregnancy on melanoma has been debated for several years, a study at the Cleveland Clinic has provided evidence that women who were pregnant or recently pregnant at the time of melanoma diagnosis were 5.1 times more likely to die of the disease than those who were not.

An accompanying editorial by a Fred Hutch researcher says, "The demanding cancer patient looks less like a budget buster and more like an urban myth."

Studies have shown that income is tied to most matters of health, including life expectancy, prevalence of diseases, and health behaviors. The Urban Institute and the Center on Society and Health have analyzed emerging evidence and prospects of income-related policies that work to improve population health.

The bill ends years of annual "patches" to forestall cuts to Medicare reimburement rates and replaces the sustainable growth rate formula with a transition to a value-based payment model.

The George Washington University Cancer Institute has finalized 45 core competency statements for oncology patient navigators, who have become critical members of the health care team.

Missouri already spends $1.2 billion on Medicaid managed care in less than half its counties. The new plan would extend managed care to all Medicaid clients except the blind, disabled, and elderly. Meanwhile, in North Carolina, the CEO of the Medical Society argued against moving Medicaid to managed care, citing problems in other states.

Investigators tried to validate a previously reported molecular finding on triple negative breast cancer that many hoped would lead to targeted treatments for the aggressive disease. Instead, they discovered that the findings were limited to a single patient and could not be applied to further clinical work.

Electronic health records were supposed to make life better for patients and doctors. But those benefits could be for naught if digital medical data aren't safe-and they don't appear to be.

Inhibiting a previously undruggable protein holds promise for treatment of numerous types of cancer.

Health insurance policies with high deductibles, high coinsurance rates, and high maximum out-of-pocket limits have become de rigueur under employment-based health insurance in the US. They also are de rigueur for the health insurance coverage sold by private health plans on the insurance exchanges under Obamacare.

While a record number of hospitals are adopting computerized physician order entry systems, which can substantially reduce common medication errors, there is still work to do, according to a new report from The Leapfrog Group.

Following last night's vote by the Senate to repeal the SGR bill, the largest society of oncologists praised the action by Congress to end this Medicare reimbursement controversy.

Recent emphasis of identifying those with prediabetes and intervening to halt its progression is aimed at reducing the financial impact of diabetes in the United States, which was estimated in 2012 at $245 billion.

When people learn they have a lesion in their pancreas that could become pancreatic cancer, they often request frequent CT scans and biopsies, or surgery. Often the lesion is nothing to worry about. A team of international physicians has developed a profile of the patient most at risk of developing lesions that are most likely to develop into cancer.