Medicare payment cuts to hospitals don't necessarily mean private insurers end up paying more, one study finds. Another reports that unifying Medicare's benefits into a single plan could save the program $180 billion over 10 years, while lowering seniors' out-of-pocket costs.
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The Commonwealth Fund concluded that, while the number of uninsured adults dropped during the past two years, a large number of working-age adults had little or no coverage.
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Eighty-four million people―nearly half of all working-age U.S. adults―went without health insurance for a time last year or had out-of-pocket costs that were so high relative to their income they were considered underinsured, according to the Commonwealth Fund 2012 Biennial Health Insurance Survey.
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Today's headlines include reports that some Democratic senators have concerns about the health law's roll out as well as other news about the measure's implementation.
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Achieving widespread reductions in preventable hospital readmissions among Medicare beneficiaries may take longer than many health care professionals originally anticipated, according to researchers at Penn State, the Weill Cornell Medical College and the University of Pennsylvania.
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In this study published by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, researchers analyzed the 1997 Children's Health Insurance Program to evaluate the potential changes in physicians' work hours in response to a large expansion in coverage.
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Catalyst for Payment Reform, an independent, non-profit employer coalition pushing for better value in health care, today released its first annual National Scorecard on Payment Reform.
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Accountable Care Organizations, a key feature of the Affordable Care Act, aim to control health care costs, enhance quality in health care and improve population health. But what does "improving population health" really mean? This is the question asked in a new viewpoint article by Weill Cornell Medical College researchers published in the March 20 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
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Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia have selected the health insurance plan in their state that will serve as the "essential health benefit" package sold by all insurers participating in the new health insurance marketplace and the individual and small-group markets beginning January 2014, according to a new Commonwealth Fund study.
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The Associated Press reports that the draft version of the application for a three-person family is 15 pages while the online version has 21 steps, some with additional questions.
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Regularly getting four hours or less of sleep isn't enough rest for most people, but sacrificing sleep to get it all done appears to be the new cultural norm.
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With Friday's deadline now passed, it is clear the federal government will run the insurance marketplaces created by the health law in about half the states. Only a handful of the states opted to partner with the feds.
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A report by the Commonwealth Fund finds that 39 states do not have measures to allow officials to enforce some key insurance regulations from the federal health law.
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Kaiser Health News staff writer Jenny Gold, working in collaboration with NPR, reports: "As of mid-January, most of NYU is up and running again, including the labor and delivery unit. But the question still looms whether NYU will lose some of the patients and even doctors who sought refuge at NYU's biggest competitors after the storm. If that happens, the storm could end up having a long term impact on NYU's valuable share of the fiercely competitive health care market in New York City."
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A new report from the Commonwealth Fund says the federal government could save $2 trillion on health care costs over a decade it if accelerates provider adoption of more-effective care.
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Using cervical fluid obtained during routine Pap tests, scientists at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center have developed a test to detect ovarian and endometrial cancers. In a pilot study, the "PapGene" test, which relies on genomic sequencing of cancer-specific mutations, accurately detected all 24 (100 percent) endometrial cancers and nine of 22 (41 percent) ovarian cancers. Results of the experiments are published in the Jan. 9 issue of the journal Science Translational Medicine.
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As part of the fiscal deal, a scheduled cut in Medicare physician payment rates was postponed -- but its 10-year price tag is being borne by other health care players, especially hospitals.
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The total cost of family health insurance, for both employers and employees, hit $15,000 last year, up 62 percent since 2003 -- and worker wages rose only 11 percent in that time, a new Commonwealth Fund report says.
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Average premiums for employer-sponsored family health insurance plans rose 62 percent between 2003 and 2011, from $9,249 to $15,022 per year, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report.
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People who qualify for Medicare and Medicaid - many of whom are elderly and in nursing homes - need lots of often-expensive care.
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