It's Valentine's Day, and no doubt retiring Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona was feeling the love at the American Medical Association's advocacy conference in Washington.
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A survey of state Medicaid directors found a healthy majority were on budget, thought some states continue to try to restrain spending by the safety-net insurer to address shortfalls.
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The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society is on track to reach door-busting, record attendance figures at its annual show later this month, according to H. Stephen Lieber, the Chicago-based healthcare IT industry trade group's president and CEO.
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A couple of days ago, Brian Ahier, blogger and Oregon-based health IT evangelist, started a ruckus on Google+.
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There was excitement in some circles when it was announced that the American Geriatrics Society was given a permanent seat on the Medicare payment advisory panel known as the RUC. But it also opened up the potential for unpleasant interaction between older folks learning how to use social media to disseminate news and younger generations using it to transmit the transient thoughts that randomly pop in their heads.
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The week brings yet one more report to underscore ways that healthcare (despite hiring through the recession) is vulnerable to the weak economy.
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An analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation examines the implications of proposals to raise Medicare beneficiary contributions by increasing premiums.
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As someone who has Googled "AMGA" in search of the American Medical Group Association only to find the American Meat Goat Association's website instead, I know that acronyms used in healthcare are not unique to the world of medicine.
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Technology blogger Shelly Palmer has a futuristic warning in his recent post, "Google = Skynet … Yikes!"
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The American Medical Association's Specialty Society Relative Value Scale Update Committee, also known as RUC, appears to be listening to its critics. But whether it's doing enough to hold on to its Medicare payment advisory role is another question.
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Demand for elective procedures, slowed by the recession and persistently high unemployment, continues to drag along with U.S. job growth, my colleague Jaimy Lee reports this week.
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A House GOP lawmaker on Wednesday sounded open to the idea of using unspent war funds as a way to pay for a long-term fix to Medicare's contentious sustainable growth rate formula.
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Annual Congressional Budget Office projections received widespread attention for the conclusion that federal healthcare spending will more than double in the coming decade. But less-discussed was another projection that insolvency will arrive in 2022 for Medicare's Hospital Insurance Trust Fund, which pays hospitals and providers of post-acute-care services under Medicare Part A.
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February got off to a strong start for healthcare policy in Washington, as lawmakers planned to discuss the contentious physician payment formula issue, welcome the Food and Drug Administration chief for a prescription drug hearing, and vote to repeal another provision of the health reform law.
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I have no political clout whatsoever, but you do—all of the industry readers of this blog.
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