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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Innovation Center held an Open Door Forum on Aug. 1 to announce some modifications to the application for the Comprehensive ESRD Initiative, or renal-specific Accountable Care Organization demonstration.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Monday that some state reports blaming Obamacare for sharply higher health insurance premiums next year were factually incorrect.

The effort to drive quality-based performance in physicians is now evident in the provision of preventive medicine.

Mr. Shopenn, 67, an architectural photographer and avid snowboarder, had been in such pain from arthritis that he could not stand long enough to make coffee, let alone work. He had health insurance, but it would not cover a joint replacement because his degenerative disease was related to an old sports injury, thus considered a pre-existing condition.

Medicare will levy $227 million in fines against hospitals in every state but one for the second round of the government's campaign to reduce the number of patients readmitted within a month, according to federal records released Friday.

While states like Colorado, Connecticut and California race to offer subsidized insurance to their citizens, Missouri stands out among the states that have put up significant obstacles.

Delaying the employer insurance mandate until 2015 has cost the government an estimated $12 billion in fees. This coming after an assessment conducted by The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) on the impact the delay will have on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) implementation.

On July 8, 2012, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released two major Medicare proposed rules impacting payment for physician and hospital outpatient services in 2014. ASH will submit comments to CMS on the proposed rules by the September 6 deadline and would like to incorporate feedback from the Society's practice-based members.

What health information technology professionals really need is training in informatics, said William Hersh, MD, chair of Oregon Health & Science University's Department of Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology.

Increasing enrollment in health insurance is one of the primary goals of the health reform law. The CMS took a major step to achieve that this week by signing agreements with five Web-based insurance broker firms to help enroll Americans in the insurance exchanges in the 35 states where the federal government will run them.

At the heart of Washington, government workers are concerned about what healthcare reform will mean for them. A mandate in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will require Congress members and their aids to obtain health insurance coverage through the state exchange marketplace.

Most health IT professionals are probably more focused on implementing or maintaining systems than they are tracking larger healthcare trends, such as the pace at which hospitals and practices are being bought and sold.

It was the late C. Everett Koop, a former U.S. surgeon general, who once famously said: Drugs don't work in patients who don't take them. That's a simple way to look at a costly and complex problem - medication non-adherence - where the failure to take drugs on time in the dosages prescribed is both dangerous for patients and costly to the health care system.

Oncologists have a reputation to maintain - and according to the latest report from ZS Associates, when it comes to fortifying against pharmaceutical sales representatives, the specialty remains characteristically hardboiled for the second year in a row.

Albert Tzeel says providers must consider how aspects of the changing healthcare landscape may affect their performance.

Big data is becoming an increasingly important buzz word in the healthcare industry, as it has a high potential for improving patient treatment and outcomes.

The market for health care information technology is showing enormous growth potential, and plenty of Maryland businesses are crowding in.

The Obama administration says the average monthly premium for Medicare prescription drug plans will inch up by $1 next year, to $31.

Florida and Georgia, two states where politicians oppose U.S. President Barack Obama's healthcare law, said on Tuesday that insurance rates for individuals would rise sharply in 2014 under the reform.

For the first time, government advisers are recommending screening for lung cancer, saying certain current and former heavy smokers should get annual scans to cut their chances of dying of the disease.

Annual ACO survey shows care coordination remains a work in progress for many providers.

Washington state won't pay for medical procedures that are unsafe, unproven or cost too much. Why can't Medicare do that?

On this day in 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Medicare program into law. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has played a significant role in how the Medicare program operates as healthcare continues to be reformed.

A recent poll given to doctors showed that while they admit having some effect on healthcare costs, they felt the majority of health price control remained in the hands of lawyers, health insurance companies, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and patients.

Check out this new infographic from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project.

President Obama waved aside persistent Republican criticism of his signature healthcare law last week, saying in a New York Times interview that the overhaul would become vastly more popular once all the nightmare scenarios from his adversaries proved wrong.

A growing number of Medicaid managed-care insurers have received approval from state regulators and state insurance exchange officials to enroll non-Medicaid members on the exchanges in October, marking the first time these specialized insurers will offer health coverage to the general public.

The Affordable Care Act will expand Medicaid eligibility starting in 2014, but a Supreme Court ruling that there will be no penalty for those states refusing to comply, or who later withdraw from the program, has left many state legislators questioning how to proceed.

Fewer hospital admissions and trips to the ER, and better and less costly diabetes care, are among the 2012 results of the patient-centered medical home program of Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, the insurer announced.

A new regulation will allow certain hospitals to buy orphan drugs at deeply discounted prices if they're used to treat non-orphan conditions or diseases.