Medicare

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EHR Incentive Programs Top $19.2 Billion In Payments

Jennifer Bresnick | EHR Intelligence | February 5, 2014

Eligible providers and hospitals are still raking in the dough to compensate for EHR adoption, said the HIT Policy Committee during its latest meeting this week.  More than $19.2 billion in incentive payments have been doled out to nearly 88% of hospitals and 60% of Medicare providers nationwide.  Over 340,000 providers have received an incentive as of the end of December 2013. Read More »

EHR Incentives Likely to Improve Quality

Brian Ahier | Government Health IT | September 1, 2011

Healthcare is one of the last industries in the United States to universally incorporate technological advancements. While most sectors have made significant investments in information technology to improve efficiency and consumer relationships, America’s health care system is still largely paper-driven. As a result the healthcare system is plagued by inefficiency and poor quality. Read More »

EHR Incentives Over $10B To Date

Mary Mosquera | Healthcare IT News | January 9, 2013

Medicare and Medicaid electronic health record payments are estimated to have blasted through $10.3 billion to a total of 180,200 physicians and hospitals through December since the program’s inception... Read More »

EHR Payments Soar To Near $20B

Anthony Brino | Government Health IT | January 15, 2014

Electronic health record incentive payments to eligible docs and hospitals continue to climb into the new year. The "inexorable progress" of the federal EHR incentive program continues, with payments to providers moving ever closer to $20 billion. Read More »

Elections 2012: Missing From The Debate – The Indian Health System

Mark Trahant | Indian Country | October 2, 2012

There is one public health “system” in the United States. Its cost per patient is lower than the rest of the country. Some of the clinics and hospitals are models of what health care could be … and at the same time some of the clinics are substandard and represent the worst of what we think of as government-run health care. Read More »

Electronic Health Records: Saving Or Undermining Medicare?

Robert N. Charette | IEEE.org | September 26, 2012

Back in 2005, then Health & Human Services Secretary Michael O. Leavitt was enthusiastically pushing hospitals and individual physicians to embrace electronic health records. Not only would healthcare providers and their patients benefit, but the cost saving EHRs would create (estimated to be $600 billion a year) would be “a key part to saving Medicare.” Read More »

Epipen: A Sign of a Broken Healthcare System

Tanya Feke | Diagnosis Life, LLC | October 13, 2016

It has been going on for years. The difference is that now the media is hopping on the story. Now America is paying attention. In 2015, the price of doxycycline, a generic antibiotic, was up to $5 per pill, an increase from $0.03 in 2014. The antibiotic is the gold standard treatment for Lyme disease. In 2015, the price of Daraprim (pyrimethamine), was up to $750 per pill, an increase from $13.50. The antiparasitic medication is used to toxoplasmosis, an infection acquired in people who have HIV/AIDS...

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Every Person Deserves Access To Health Care

Julie Pease | Bangor Daily News | August 5, 2013

On the occasion of Medicare’s 47th birthday, we urge the immediate expansion of Medicare to everyone in the United States. We need a health care system that provides access to every one of us, no matter how sick, poor, old or unemployed we may be. We need reduced costs. We need improved health outcomes. Read More »

FDA Wants To Leverage Electronic Medical Records To Probe For Adverse Events

Alexander Gaffney | Regulatory Focus (RF) | January 6, 2014

Keeping track of adverse events is a tricky task, even for regulators. Even when a drug has undergone a rigorous premarket assessment process, some risks may not become evident until a product is used by millions. And for other drugs, a particularly rare but serious side effect may take months, if not years, to be identified. Read More »

Fed Health IT Spending: $6.5 Billion By 2016

Nicole Lewis | Information Week | December 28, 2011

Federal health IT spending will increase from $4.5 billion in 2011 to $6.5 billion in 2016, which represents a compound annual growth rate of 7.5%, according to a GovWin IQ research study released by Deltek. 

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Federal Cuts Threaten Healthcare System For Alaska Natives

Dermot Cole | Alaska Dispatch | October 23, 2013

The 10-year federal “sequestration” plan of steady cuts could devastate the healthcare system that Alaska Natives rely on, speakers at a conference of tribal leaders said Wednesday. Read More »

Federal Health Care IT Spending Set to Grow

Angela Petty | The Washington Post | January 8, 2012

With money tight, congressional appropriators rarely insist that agencies spend money. Yet the omnibus spending bill passed Dec. 17 approved $100 million for a joint Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs effort to develop digital medical records — even though they missed deadlines for requesting the money. Read More »

Federal ‘Biosurveillance’ Plan Seeking Direct Access To Americans’ Private Medical Records

Barbara Hollingsworth | CNSNews.com | May 20, 2014

The federal government is piecing together a sweeping national “biosurveillance” system that will give bureaucrats near real-time access to Americans’ private medical information in the name of national security, according to Twila Brase, a public health nurse and co-founder of the Citizens Council for Health Freedom.  

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Feds Look to Health Data Analytics for Innovation Help

Walker Duncan | Nashville Post | November 6, 2011

It’s rare to hear someone refer to a conference presentation from a government bureaucrat as “a treat.” But, that is just how numerous observers have described a recent speech by Todd Park, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ “Entrepreneur in Residence” and chief technology officer. Read More »

Fee Data May Deter Docs From Ordering Labs

Charles Bankhead | MedPage Today | April 15, 2013

Displaying the cost of a test to providers at the time of ordering led to a modest decrease in the number of orders for laboratory studies placed over a 6-month period, investigators reported. Read More »