It's Christmas in July for Medicare-participating physicians—though the gift is far from being delivered. On Wednesday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously passed bipartisan legislation to repeal Medicare's sustainable growth-rate formula and replace it with a stable system of payments to the nation's physicians.
For years, Congress has waited until the end of the calendar year to stave off a steep Medicare payment cut to physicians with a temporary fix.
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Highmark's turn to try to stanch losses at Pittsburgh's West Penn Allegheny Health System has begun.
Roughly 260 workers at the health system were laid off today and another 200 vacant jobs were eliminated. The four-hospital system, the hub of Highmark's new eight-hospital Allegheny Health Network, has hemorrhaged cash and lost patients in recent years. Now the system must shrink accordingly, said Dan Laurent, an Allegheny Health Network spokesman.
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Eye-care firms continue to be a hot target this year as pharmaceutical and medical-device firms see a growing market for ophthalmology procedures.
Abbott Laboratories, the Illinois-based medical-device giant, is shelling out $250 million for OptiMedica Corp., which makes technology for laser-assisted cataract surgery.
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Not one to sit quietly for long, Glenview Capital Management, the hedge fund trying to force a change of control at Health Management Associates, nominated a ninth director to serve on the chain's board.
The activist investor has already put up a slate of eight nominees in an effort to unseat HMA's current board of directors, which has had the same chairman since April 1986
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The healthcare spending slump isn't just a U.S. phenomenon.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reports that healthcare spending increased less than 2% in 2011 among its 32 member nations, with the sharpest slowdowns being felt in those countries hit hardest by the economic crisis. Spending fell in 2010.
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