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Aetna achieves full pharmacy benefit management accreditation from URAC

Aetna Pharmacy Management today announced that it has been awarded full pharmacy benefit management accreditation from URAC, an independent health care accrediting organization that evaluates and monitors PBM's for quality, safety and effectiveness.

26 Apr 2011

Corticosteroid creams do not cause skin thinning: Study

According to a new study, long term use of steroid creams to treat children with the skin condition known as eczema doesn't cause any major negative side effects.

25 Apr 2011

Aussies avoiding regular dental check-ups: Report

According to a new report, the annual visit to the dentist is becoming a luxury for many Australians and almost 40 per cent of the population does not go for regular check-ups.

25 Apr 2011

American Academy of Pediatrics sounds alarm on chemicals

Pediatricians group warns that federal regulations have failed to protect children from dangerous exposure.

25 Apr 2011

Highmark to open additional Direct retail health insurance stores in Pennsylvania

Highmark today announced that it will open two additional Highmark Direct retail health insurance stores in Pennsylvania. The stores will be located in Lancaster and Easton and will bring the total number of stores in the state to eight.

25 Apr 2011

Some Iowa health care institutions have little oversight

The Des Moines Register looked at state regulation of health care institutions.

25 Apr 2011

Supreme Court declines to expedite Virginia suit against health law

Virginia's challenge of the health law will need to take the normal route through federal appeals courts.

25 Apr 2011

Child's death renews medical error debate

News outlets examine efforts to end hospital errors and a different case may challenge laws that protect military medical personnel from medical malpractice lawsuits.

25 Apr 2011

Governors feeling the pinch on Medicaid funding

Medicaid was created in 1965 to provide health coverage for the poorest Americans, particularly those with children. States pay, on average, 43% of the tab for Medicaid. Washington pays the rest and, as part of the new health-care law, the federal government restricts states' ability to save money by narrowing eligibility for the program or charging more for coverage.

25 Apr 2011

House Republicans face heat at home over proposed Medicare cuts

During the congressional recess, constituents have grilled some House Republicans on how deficit reduction proposals will affect Medicare. Meanwhile, Don Berwick says GOP plans deserve the "rationing" label more than the health law does.

25 Apr 2011

Planned Parenthood spends $400,000 on first-quarter lobbying

Planned Parenthood's federal lobbying bill more than tripled in the first three months of the new Congress, as Republicans targeted the group for funding cuts and transformed it into a political cause célébre.

25 Apr 2011

As practices change, family physician has trouble retiring

Dr. [Ronald] Sroka has practiced family medicine for 32 years in a small, red-brick building just six miles from his childhood home. ... Dr. Sroka, 62, thought about retiring. He tried to sell his once highly profitable practice. No luck. He tried giving it away. No luck. Dr. Sroka's fate is emblematic of a transformation in American medicine. ... [D]octors like him are increasingly being replaced by teams of rotating doctors and nurses who do not know their patients nearly as well. A centuries-old intimacy between doctor and patient is being lost.

25 Apr 2011

Analysis of the health law's effects continues

Reports look at the diverse effects of the health law — from Medicare and Medicaid to the accountable care organizations.

25 Apr 2011

AstraZeneca announces U.S. availability of vandetanib for rare medullary thyroid cancer

AstraZeneca today announced that the orphan drug vandetanib is now available to U.S. patients for the treatment of medullary thyroid cancer that cannot be removed by surgery or that has spread to other parts of the body.

25 Apr 2011

Supreme Court to weigh drug confidentiality laws

Marketing to doctors using prescription records bearing their names is an increasingly contentious practice, with three states, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, in the vanguard of enacting laws to limit the uses of a doctor's prescription records for marketing.

25 Apr 2011

EACC to host Health & Wellness conference in Cincinnati

The European-American Chamber of Commerce will host a conference on Health & Wellness in Cincinnati to explore the challenges and opportunities organizations face as health care policies undergo dramatic changes locally, nationally and abroad.

25 Apr 2011

Avian flu remains endemic in six countries, could take at least a decade to eradicate, FAO says

It will take at least 10 years to eradicate the H5N1 virus from poultry in the six countries where it is endemic, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said in a report released on Thursday, Agence France-Presse reports.

25 Apr 2011

USC School of Medicine to host world congress on ultrasound for healthcare providers

The first World Congress on Ultrasound in Medical Education will be held in Columbia, S.C., April 29-May 1, bringing together physicians, medical students, educators and health care professionals from around the world to learn more about the technology known as the "stethoscope of the future."

25 Apr 2011

Global health experts discuss legislative landscape of 112th Congress at Kaiser Family Foundation panel

U.S. global health programs did relatively well in terms of funding in the FY11 budget, but global health policy experts participating in a panel discussion on Wednesday at the Kaiser Family Foundation acknowledged that challenges remain as Congress begins debate on the FY12 budget.

25 Apr 2011

New study reports national survey results of physicians who deliver childhood vaccinations

A new study led by Allison Kempe, MD, MPH, professor of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and director of the Children's Outcomes Research Program at The Children's Hospital, reports the results of a national survey of primary care physicians who deliver vaccinations to children.

25 Apr 2011