Spending on healthcare is expected to rise just 4.5% next year as employers and providers make a number of moves to bring down costs.
In its annual Behind the Numbers report, PricewaterhouseCoopers' Health Research Institute is forecasting a medical cost trend of 6.5% for 2014—offset by health insurance changes that will effectively lower that number two percentage points.
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More companies are sending their retirees into private insurance exchanges for their retiree health coverage. That may result in retirees paying more out of pocket.
Both IBM and Time Warner recently announced plans to move retirees who are of Medicare-eligibility age to private exchanges. They will receive a fixed amount of money from companies and choose among health plans—including Medicare supplemental and Medicare Advantage plans, offered through the private marketplaces.
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Clinton
The reform law got a boost Wednesday from former President Bill Clinton, who praised the law's benefits and urged supporters and detractors to work together on fixing its problems.
Clinton's speech is a needed boost for the White House less than a month before open enrollment begins, especially as the Obama administration is now focused on garnering support from Congress for a military strike against the Syrian government. <
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The news Thursday that the Internal Revenue Service will recognize same-sex marriages, no matter where the couples live, will have healthcare implications.
They're not necessarily positive ones, according to Brian Haile, senior vice president for healthcare policy at Jackson Hewitt Tax Service.
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A large North Carolina hospital and a suburban Chicago system are the latest to trim their payrolls and point to revenue pressure from the federal healthcare reform law as a primary cause.
At Mission Hospital in Asheville, N.C., the belt-tightening hits the C-suite, including the CEO's salary.
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Have you heard this joke before?
How do you know when a total joint implant sales rep is at the hospital? When the orthopedic surgeons' cars aren't the nicest ones in the parking lot.
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Oncology nurse Theresa Brown, in an op-ed piece in the New York Times Sunday, argued for government-mandated nurse-staffing ratios.
She cited research showing that each extra patient a nurse had above an established nurse-patient ratio made it 7% more likely that one of the patients would die, and that 20,000 people died a year because they were in hospitals with overworked nurses.
“When hospitals have insufficient nursing staffs, patients who would have gotten better can get hurt, or worse,” Brown wrote.
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A number of major medical specialty medical societies are preparing to release new lists of tests and procedures they deem to be unnecessary or potentially harmful, as the third installment of the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation's “Choosing Wisely” campaign, the foundation announced Wednesday.
Beginning in September and continuing through March, more than 30 national specialty
physicians' groups will release lists of services they consider overused.
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Physicians believe electronic health records can improve patient outcomes but feel that EHR costs outweigh any financial benefits they might have, according to the fourth annual athenahealth Physician Sentiment Index.
The survey also found that doctors see receiving third-party payments as increasingly complex but are getting less frustrated with the process. Similarly, physicians doubt government involvement can have a positive impact on healthcare, “but the passion surrounding it seems to have lessened,” according to the survey.
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The high cost of excessive drinking can be tallied in billions of dollars for health costs, lost productivity, criminal justice expenses and property damage, a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found.
Nationwide the cost of binge drinking was $223.5 billion in 2006, according to the study, with a median cost of $2.9 billion to each state and the District of Columbia.
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As healthcare reform expands coverage, nonphysician providers are seeking to expand their portfolio of licensed services and are facing intense opposition from doctors to their efforts.
In California, three bills before the Legislature propose to expand the scope of practice for nurse practitioners, optometrists and pharmacists, with one bill advancing and two bills being stalled.
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