healthcare costs
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Transformation of Health System Needed to Improve Care and Reduce Costs
America's health care system has become too complex and costly to continue business as usual, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine. Read More »
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Tricare Networks Eyed To Improve Veterans' Access To Care
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has proposed opening military Tricare networks of civilian health care providers to veterans who can’t get timely mental health care from the Department of Veterans Affairs. Read More »
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Troops With Traumatic Brain Injury Show Symptoms 5 Years Later
A high proportion of the 273,859 troops diagnosed with traumatic brain injury since the start of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continued to experience “significant symptoms and problems” five years after injury, the Pentagon said in its first take on a 15-year TBI study mandated by Congress. Read More »
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U.S. Consumers Pay More For Drugs
U.S. consumers and taxpayers usually pay more - often much more - than people in other developed nations for brand-name drugs, according to a series of papers published Monday in the journal Health Affairs. Read More »
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U.S. Health Spending Dips
The good news: the total U.S. healthcare spending in 2012 grew slightly slower than the economy, causing a dip in healthcare's share of the economy. The bad news: healthcare spending still comprises almost a fifth of the U.S. economy at 17.2 percent in 2012, down from 17.3 percent in 2011. Read More »
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Under Tight Budgets, Public Health Spending Falls For First Time
Policymakers took heart from another year of relatively slow health-spending growth in 2011, documented by government statisticians and disclosed in a report Monday. But one aspect of moderating health expenditures — and the only category showing outright decline — could cost more than it saves. Read More »
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Universal Healthcare Doesn't Mean Waiting Longer to See A Doctor
A new report from the Commonwealth Fund shows that people in other industrialized nations get doctors' appointments faster than Americans do. Read More »
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US Defense Think Tank Calls for DoD to Adopt the Open Source VistA EHR and Avoid Closed and Proprietary EHRs.
One of the most prestigious U.S. defense think tanks, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), issued a white paper Thursday calling on the Department of Defense (DoD) to replace their existing dysfunctional “vendor-lock” medical records system with an electronic health records system (EHR) that is "extensible, flexible and easy to safely modify and upgrade as technology improves and interoperability demands evolve." The white paper warns that a "closed and proprietary" commercial EHR - such as the ones offered by Epic, Cerner or Allscripts - will lead to "vendor-lock” and isolation of health data. Read More »
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US Employers Slashing Worker Hours To Avoid Obamacare Insurance Mandate
Trend sparks fears among low-paid workers that they will be hit twice: by having earnings cut and paying more for healthcare Read More »
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US Hospitals Send Hundreds Of Immigrant Patients Back To Home Countries To Curb Cost Of Care
Days after they were badly hurt in a car accident, Jacinto Cruz and Jose Rodriguez-Saldana lay unconscious in an Iowa hospital while the American health care system weighed what to do with the two immigrants from Mexico. Read More »
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US Lags Behind Wealthy Nations On Improving Health Outcomes
Raising questions about whether higher healthcare spending means better health outcomes, a new study shows the United States has high expenditures and mediocre population health at the national level. Read More »
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VA Disability Claims For Sleep Apnea Skyrocket To Over $1.2 Billion Per Year
The Department of Veterans Affairs is reportedly spending over $1.2 billion per year to treat sleep apnea, leading one attorney to call on Congress to investigate. Read More »
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VA Facing Huge Bill For Injured Soldiers Care
The Veterans Affairs healthcare system is likely facing a huge bill in the coming decades to treat soldiers severely wounded in action during the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, Kaiser Health News reported. Read More »
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VA Harnesses Big Data For Broader Impact
Dr. Stephan Fihn is sitting on the edge of a revolution at the Department of Veterans Affairs, where big data is becoming easily accessible for clinicians and analysts throughout its 160 hospitals. Read More »
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VA HBPC Provides Model For Medicare, Patient-Centered Medical Homes
Based on its ability to manage patient care and costs effectively, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) program for providing home-based primacy care (HBPC) should serve as a model for improving similar Medicare programs, according to a recent report by the American Action Forum. Read More »
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