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Premium Article Law's Penalties Spur Dallas-Area Hospitals To Improve Care

Sherry Jacobson | Dallas Morning News | June 11, 2013

A million times a year, [patients suffering from congestive heart failure] are admitted to U.S. hospitals, stabilized and sent home. But it doesn’t last long. Almost a quarter of heart failure patients on Medicare are readmitted within 30 days, as sick as ever. But that’s about to change. Read More »

Private Insurers Have Cost Medicare $282.6 Billion In Excess Payments Since 1985

Press Release | Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) | October 10, 2012

Researchers say privately run Medicare Advantage plans have undermined traditional Medicare’s fiscal health and taken a heavy toll on taxpayers, seniors and the U.S. economy Read More »

Profits Vs. Patient Outcomes In The Healthcare Industry

Audrey Erbes | eClinical Trends | May 19, 2014

...In my exposure to healthcare delivery worldwide, I learned that this basic ethic of improving the healthcare of all citizens was not universally accepted by industry and providers globally. Cheating on clinical trials, denying health care to large segments of the population due to cultural bias and politicians twisting the rules of reimbursement to maintain the same false share of medical costs for drugs even if their lowered and offset previous government expenditures for hospitalization and morbidity...

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Proposal Gives Patients Access to Own Lab Results

Paige Winfield Cunningham | The Washington Times | September 12, 2011

Patients would be allowed direct access to lab results under a new rule proposed by the Obama administration that is part of a broader effort to nudge the health care industry away from paper-driven systems and toward technologies that make it easier to access and share records. Read More »

Provider EHR Incentive Registrations Exceed 100,000

Mary Mosquera | Government Health IT | October 5, 2011

The number of physicians and hospitals that have registered for the Medicare or Medicaid electronic health record (EHR) incentive program has surpassed 100,000, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Read More »

Puerto Rico’s Health-Care Crisis Threatens the Mainland

Mattie Quinn | Governing | March 1, 2016

Just a few years ago, New York had a health-care crisis on its hands. The state was spending $50 billion a year on Medicaid in 2011 -- more than any other state in the country. Health-care officials in New York worked together to bring down spending, and last year the state introduced an $8 billion plan to repurpose its whole program, with a focus on outpatient care and community health. But now the state is facing another threat to its health-care system: Puerto Rico. America’s biggest territory continues to find itself in serious financial trouble, with a current debt of $72 billion, which the territory’s governor has declared "not payable"...

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Quality Matters: "Hospital at Home" Programs Improve Outcomes, Lower Costs But Face Resistance from Providers and Payers

Sarah Klein | The Commonwealth Fund | August 1, 2011

Hospital at home programs that enable patients to receive acute care at home have proven effective in reducing complications while cutting the cost of care by 30 percent or more, leading to entrepreneurial efforts to promote their use. But widespread adoption of the model in the U.S. has been hampered by physicians’ concerns about patient safety, as well as legal risk, and by the reluctance of payers, including Medicare, to reimburse providers for delivering services in home settings. Read More »

Quit the RUC

Brian Klepper and David Kibbe | Kaiser Health News | January 20, 2011

Three times a year, 29 doctors gather around a table in a hotel meeting room. Their job is an unusual one: divvying up billions of Medicare dollars.

The group, convened by the American Medical Association, has no official government standing. Members are mostly selected by medical-specialty trade groups. Anyone who attends its meetings must sign a confidentiality agreement. Read More »

Rep. Burgess' Office Releases Draft Interoperability Bill for Discussion

The office of Rep. Michael Burgess, MD (R-TX) released a draft of the interoperability bill that they have been working for the past several months on Friday. Rep. Burgess, one of the few physicians in Congress, has been working very hard with his staff to come up with legislation that can fix the current Health IT "lock-in" crisis. This is a bipartisan effort that has full backing from the top leadership in Congress. The staff is seeking input from the Health IT community on the draft bill. Burgess's office will take comments on the draft through March 13. Rep. Burgess' staff was kind enough to provide Open Health News with a copy of the draft legislation. We have posted the entire draft bill as is below and will be writing some our thoughts over the next few days. 

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Report Says Big Changes Are Needed In How Doctors Are Trained

Julie Rovner | NPR Shots | July 29, 2014

The way American doctors are trained needs to be overhauled, an expert panel recommended Tuesday, saying the current $15 billion system is failing to produce the medical workforce the nation needs...

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Report: EHR Market to Grow at Steady Pace, Reach $8.3B by 2016

Jeff Byers | CMIO | November 10, 2011

The U.S. market for electronic health record systems is expected to reach $8.3 billion by 2016, growing at an annual rate of more than 12%, according to a report from Millennium Research Group, a Toronto-based market research firm, Health Data Management reports. Read More »

Report: EHR Market to Hit $6.5B in 2012

Jeff Byers | Health Imaging | October 18, 2011

The U.S. market earned revenues of $973.2 million in 2009 and total market revenues are expected to peak at $6.5 billion in 2012, primarily due to new licensing and upgrades as hospitals scramble to get certified EHR systems in place, according to a report from market researcher Frost & Sullivan. Read More »

Republican Health Care Executive on Single Payer: The Remedy is Universal Medicare

Jack Bernard | Physicians for a National Health Program | July 1, 2012

We did end up with a health care reform law. But, strangely enough, it was stolen from Romneycare and the Republican side of the aisle simply because of the political cost to the Democrats of inaction. It is a horse put together by a committee — ineffective, complex and political. If Romneycare is any indication, it will clearly not control costs to the taxpayer, the top health care concern of most Americans. Read More »

RowdMap, Inc. Speaks at Health:Further Summit on Creating High-Value Care from Open Health Data

Press Release | RowdMap, Inc. | August 16, 2016

Joshua Rosenthal, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer and Co-Founder at RowdMap, Inc., will be speaking on how health plans and physicians and hospitals create high-value care with open data from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). According to the Institute of Medicine (IOM), thirty cents of every dollar goes to low-value care, or care that has higher risks and costs but does not produce better outcomes. According to researchers, if low-value care were removed, there would be more than enough care to cover the population...

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Samuel Shem Calls for Using VistA and the VA Model of Care to Solve the Physician Burnout Crisis

On November 1st Newsweek published an extraordinary Op-Ed by Samuel Shem titled Why Computerized Medical Records Are Bad for Both You and Your Doctor. In the article, Shem, pen name for the American psychiatrist and well-known author Stephen Joseph Bergman, presents evidence that poorly designed electronic medical records (EMRs) and over-regulation are to blame for the growing crisis of physician burnout and suicide. The rate of suicides among physicians has risen to a staggering number--three per day. Shem argues that there is a "better way," and that is shown by the electronic health record (EHR) system used by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The VA's EHR is called VistA. Shem's view is supported by a large and increasing number of physicians and nurses. Read More »