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Uninsured and Medicaid patients have higher overall and cancer-specific mortality rates

Compared to patients with non-Medicaid insurance, uninsured patients and patients with Medicaid are more likely to present with advanced stages of head and neck cancer and have higher overall and cancer-specific mortality rates, according to research presented at the 2016 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium.

19 Feb 2016

Blue Cross Blue Shield Association commits to address nation's growing opioid crisis

Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and top executives from Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies around the country today committed to addressing the nation's growing opioid crisis with an executive-level committee that will investigate its impact on individuals, local communities and the healthcare system as a whole.

18 Feb 2016

Covered California chooses VSP Vision Care to provide access to quality eye care for Californians

Covered California announced today that it has selected VSP Vision Care, the nation's largest healthcare organization by membership, to offer access to vision care coverage for adults throughout the state.

18 Feb 2016

ACC, AHA support implementation of proposed cardiovascular measures, with reservations

Quality measures announced today by the Core Quality Measures Collaborative represent a step forward in reducing paperwork and confusion while also allowing providers to focus on measures that impact patient outcomes, the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the American Heart Association (AHA) said in support of implementation of the proposed cardiovascular measures. But the groups expressed reservations about blood pressure targets included in the measures.

17 Feb 2016

Benefit of using antibody-coated drug-eluting stents for CHD still unclear, shows report

In patients with coronary heart disease requiring a stent implantation, the benefit of treatment with antibody-coated drug-eluting stents (ABC-DES) versus drug-eluting stents without antibody coating (DES) is still unclear.

17 Feb 2016

Survey: 43% of Americans likely to pay more for health insurance in 2016

According to the latest survey conducted by leading personal finance website GOBankingRates.com, 43 percent of Americans expect to pay more for health insurance in 2016, with 23 percent expecting to pay "a little more than the last year" and 20 percent expecting to pay "a lot more than the last year."

16 Feb 2016

$UMD investigators assess potential health hazards associated with fracking in Maryland$

UMD investigators assess potential health hazards associated with fracking in Maryland

Following their release of a state-commissioned study on the potential public health impacts of fracking in Western Maryland, University of Maryland researchers are helping to inform the conversation about the potential risks associated with unconventional natural gas development and production.

15 Feb 2016

UPMC uses simple gene test to personalize medications for patients undergoing heart catheterization

Patients who go to UPMC Presbyterian for heart catheterization and who receive a stent to treat clogged arteries are now being screened with a simple blood test to determine if they have a gene variant that makes them less likely to respond to a blood-thinning medication commonly prescribed after the procedure.

11 Feb 2016

Using BMI to measure health incorrectly labels over 54 million Americans as 'unhealthy', study finds

Over the past few years, body mass index, a ratio of a person's height and weight, has effectively become a proxy for whether a person is considered healthy. Many U.S. companies use their employees' BMIs as a factor in determining workers' health care costs. And people with higher BMIs could soon have to pay higher health insurance premiums, if a rule proposed in April by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is adopted.

5 Feb 2016

FedMed gains access to Trovagene's Precision Cancer Monitoring tests and service

Trovagene, Inc., a developer of cell-free molecular diagnostics, announced today that it has entered into an agreement with FedMed, Inc. establishing health benefit access to Trovagene's full line of Precision Cancer Monitoring (PCM) tests and services.

1 Feb 2016

Young African Americans, Hispanics fare worse when faced with Hodgkin lymphoma

African American and Hispanic adolescents and young adults fare far worse than their white counterparts when faced with a mostly curable type of cancer, Hodgkin lymphoma, a study by a UC Davis epidemiologist has found.

30 Jan 2016

Report: Almost 70% of Texans uninsured due to high cost of health insurance

Almost 70 percent of uninsured Texans said the high cost of health insurance is the reason they remain uninsured, according to a new report released today by Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy and the Episcopal Health Foundation.

29 Jan 2016

MEDPRO project develops realistic model of future health care system

What will our health care system look like in the future? The MEDPRO project of the Austrian Science Fund FWF seeks to deliver answers to this pertinent question.

20 Jan 2016

Patients enrolled in high-deductible health insurance plans use fewer diagnostic tests

Patients enrolled in high-deductible health insurance plans have lower rates of use and lower costs for imaging tests, suggests a study in the February issue of Medical Care.

18 Jan 2016

IQWiG finds no added benefit for pomalidomide drug in multiple myeloma

Pomalidomide (trade name: Imnovid) has been approved since 2013 for the treatment of multiple myeloma that has returned and is difficult to treat. The drug is an option for adults who have received two or more prior treatment regimens, including treatment with the drugs lenalidomide and bortezomib, and in whom the last treatment had no sufficient effect.

13 Jan 2016

New clinical study reveals previously unknown risk factors linked to keratoconus

A large new study reveals previously unknown risk factors associated with an eye condition that causes serious progressive nearsightedness at a relatively young age.

13 Jan 2016

New study finds significant racial disparity in patients with HIV and Hodgkin lymphoma

A new study finds a significant racial disparity within a doubly troubled population of patients: those with HIV and Hodgkin lymphoma. In such cases, blacks are at significantly higher risk than whites of not receiving treatment for the cancer that in many cases would be effective.

11 Jan 2016

New, personalized approach to detecting low back pain

Scientists at The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research have discovered a new, personalized approach to diagnosing low back pain. The findings from a clinical study show that serum levels of the proinflammatory cytokine interleukin-6 (IL-6) vary in individuals with lumbar intervertebral disc disease and that biochemical profiling of circulating cytokines may assist in refining personalized diagnoses of disc diseases.

8 Jan 2016

Meridian Health Plan named one of 'Best and Brightest Companies to Work For'

Meridian Health Plan, for the second time, has been nationally named one of the "Best and Brightest Companies to Work For" by the National Association for Business Resources. Previously, the NABR had consistently named Meridian as one of "Metropolitan Detroit's 101 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For" 2012 through 2015.