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Health insurance costs rise, driven by higher hospital, doctor prices

According to a report by the Health Care Cost Institute, insurance spending jumped in 2011 - a departure from the two previous years.

26 Sep 2012

'Women and Girls Lead Global' initiative launched to 'educate, inspire'

In a post in USAID's "IMPACTblog," CARE President and CEO Helene Gayle describes a new multi-partner initiative, called "Women and Girls Lead Global," which aims to spread "the stories of ... resilient women and girls" through documentary films that will air in nine countries over three years.

26 Sep 2012

Double-digit premium increases seen in popular Medicare drug plans

Seniors in seven of the 10 most popular Medicare drug plans will see marked premium increases for 2013 if they don't opt to change plans, according to an analysis by Avalere Health.

26 Sep 2012

Obama administration warns hospitals on Medicare billing abuses

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Attorney General Eric Holder notified hospital trade groups Monday that they planned to prosecute providers that use electronic records to "game the system" by billing Medicare for more complicated care than they actually deliver.

26 Sep 2012

PRI examines India's efforts to combat malnutrition using local product

PRI's "The World" reports on malnutrition in India, where "eight million children ... suffer from severe acute malnutrition, according to the Indian government." However, the news service writes that "when it comes to treating those children, India lacks what many consider one of the best tools available: so-called ready-to-use therapeutic foods," such as "the most well-known therapeutic food, Plumpy'Nut, ... a patented concoction of peanut butter and micro-nutrients that allows severely malnourished children to be treated at home instead of at a hospital."

26 Sep 2012

Sufficient resources needed to maintain progress against AIDS, TB, malaria

"This week, heads of state, celebrities and CEOs will attend U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's 'Every Woman, Every Child' dinner in New York," an event that "will highlight the amazing contribution of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to the health of women and children in developing countries," Lucy Chesire, executive director and secretary to the board of TB ACTION Group, writes in the Huffington Post's "The Big Push" blog.

26 Sep 2012

Chinese innovations, resources could help create new global health products

In this post in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's "Impatient Optimists" blog, Christine Rousseau, a program officer at the foundation, describes the importance of diagnostics in HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis (TB) care and treatment and writes, This brings me to the tremendous role that China's entrepreneurs can play as partners in global health.

26 Sep 2012

Ambulatory BP monitoring can accurately measure hypertension epidemic

A recently published editorial in the Journal of the American Society of Hypertension (JASH), "Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring Should Be Included in the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES)," recognizes the importance of this national survey instrument but questions the efficiency of its diagnostic methods in assessing hypertension in the population.

26 Sep 2012

Congress approves bill designed to protect patients from stolen medical products

Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, some Senate conservatives are considering taking steps to block a deal to avert the automatic cuts called for under sequester.

26 Sep 2012

Prescription drug abuse among young adults drops

Prescription drug abuse by young adults dropped 14 percent last year to its lowest rate since 2002 as authorities continue new attempts to curtail abuse.

26 Sep 2012

U.S. Ambassador to Mozambique signs PEPFAR funding agreements with CBOs

On Monday in Maputo, Mozambique, U.S. Ambassador Douglas Griffiths signed funding agreements with 29 community-based organizations that will receive a total of $1.4 million through PEPFAR's small grants program "to strengthen health systems, boost professional training and implement income generating activities for people living with or affected by HIV/AIDS," the Mozambique News Agency/AllAfrica.com reports.

26 Sep 2012

Progress on women's, children's health provides optimism for further success

Noting successes achieved under the Every Woman Every Child campaign and the Global Plan towards the elimination of new HIV infections among children by 2015 and keeping their mothers alive, UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe writes in the Huffington Post's "The Big Push" blog that leaders "have stepped up and stood strong for critical issues on the women's and children's health agenda to advance the health Millennium Development Goals and ensure the sustainability of results beyond 2015."

26 Sep 2012

Clinton delivers remarks on diplomacy, development at Clinton Global Initiative

The State Department provides a transcript of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's speech at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York.

26 Sep 2012

Viewpoints: The 'real story' of Ryan at AARP; 'Get thee to an emergency room'

The headlines this weekend were all about the boos Paul Ryan elicited on Friday when he addressed the AARP, the self-styled seniors' lobby. The herd of independent media minds missed the real story, which is that the Republican Vice Presidential nominee went into the heart of the entitlement culture, told some hard truths, and even won applause for doing so.

26 Sep 2012

Candidates, committees spend money and stand ground in House and Senate races

The Associated Press looks at competitive House races in New York, where Republicans are spending significant money to hold three seats held by freshmen. In the meantime, Todd Akin is standing his ground in his Senate race in Missouri.

26 Sep 2012

'Big Push' needed to ensure political will necessary to maintain progress against AIDS, TB, malaria

"What will the day be like when we finally defeat AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria?" Arianna Huffington, president and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post Media Group, asks in the Huffington Post's "The Big Push" blog.

26 Sep 2012

Preliminary results of MSF malaria prevention program suggest malaria drugs prevent disease in healthy children

A large-scale malaria prevention program through which medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) gave intermittent doses of anti-malaria drugs to 175,000 children in Mali and Chad suggests that "widely distributing anti-malaria drugs to healthy children in African countries can significantly reduce the number of new cases of the disease," VOA News reports.

26 Sep 2012

Roundup: Calif. mental hospitals released from fed oversight; Kansas hospitals cooperate to recruit rural docs; Va. abortion law questions

A U.S. District Court judge Monday released the state's mental hospitals from federal oversight on all but one issue -- a significant step in ending a costly six-year reform effort. The extensive court-supervised changes were imposed on four hospitals in 2006 as part of a settlement to a lawsuit by the U.S. Department of Justice. The department alleged that the state was violating patients' civil rights by heavily drugging and improperly restraining them and failing to provide appropriate treatment.

26 Sep 2012

Persistence pays out exercise benefits in heart failure

Health benefits derived from regular exercise accumulate over the long term, shows a 10-year study in patients with heart failure.

25 Sep 2012

AAPC announces results from 2012 health care salary survey

AAPC, the leader in enabling the business side of medicine, announced the results from the 2012 AAPC Health Care Salary Survey. The survey is open to all members of the health care community, including medical billers and coders, practice managers, auditors, and physicians. This year nearly 20,000 health care professionals responded to the survey.

25 Sep 2012