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Obama resubmits Berwick nomination to Senate, Kagan responds to health law concerns

President Obama on Monday submitted his nomination of Dr. Donald Berwick to head Medicare and Medicaid — "a move that comes two weeks after Obama bypassed Congress to put his stalled nominee in the post until the end of 2011," Roll Call reports. If Berwick is approved, he would have the job indefinitely instead of merely through 2011, a rule that is imposed when a recess appointment is used.

21 Jul 2010

Senate moves to extend unemployment benefits, no COBRA subsidy extension

The New York Times: "The Senate broke a stalemate on Tuesday over extending unemployment benefits for Americans who have been out of work for six months or more, voting to override Republican objections that the bill's costs would add to the federal deficit" (Hulse, 7/20).

21 Jul 2010

Gentiva preliminary second-quarter total net revenues increase 4% to $297 million

Gentiva Health Services, Inc., a leading provider of home health and hospice services, today reported preliminary operating results for the second quarter ended July 4, 2010. A conference call to discuss these preliminary results will be held on July 21, 2010 at 9:00 a.m., Eastern Time. The Company will issue its final 2010 second quarter and six months financial results on July 29, 2010.

21 Jul 2010

MedeAnalytics 10 software platform released

MedeAnalytics, a leading provider of healthcare performance management solutions, today announced its summer 2010 software platform release, MedeAnalytics 10, which offers performance-packed features for proactive alerting and outlier analysis. The release incorporates client input and reflects the company's ongoing investment in its analytic platform. New releases are provided to clients on a semi-annual basis and typically require no upgrades or installations.

20 Jul 2010

First Edition: July 20, 2010

Today's headlines reflect more analysis and debate regarding continuing health reform implementation efforts.

20 Jul 2010

UnitedHealth Group second-quarter consolidated revenues increase 7% to $23.3 billion

UnitedHealth Group today reported second quarter results, including better-than-projected growth in Health Benefits and Health Services. Key performance metrics and costs were in line with or better than Company expectations.

20 Jul 2010

Policies that weaken ability of payers to detect and prevent waste, fraud, and abuse must be rejected: PCMA

Pharmaceutical Care Management Association (PCMA) President and CEO Mark Merritt issued the following statement today on the recent U.S. House Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies subcommittee vote to provide the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Inspector General, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and the Justice Department with $561 million for programs designed to combat fraud, waste, and abuse:

20 Jul 2010

New report compares efficacy of Plavix, Effient in treating patients with ACS

Decision Resources, one of the world's leading research and advisory firms for pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, finds that, for the treatment of acute coronary syndrome, 56 percent of surveyed interventional cardiologists who prescribe Bristol-Myers Squibb/Sanofi-Aventis' Plavix in high doses, consider it to be comparable in efficacy to Daiichi Sankyo/Eli Lilly's recently-launched Effient.

20 Jul 2010

Proactive Patient Outreach system, patient registry to improve care coordination, population health outcomes

Under the HITECH Act's final rules for meaningful use issued last week by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, physicians are required to demonstrate the ability to effectively report quality data, manage care coordination, engage patients and families, and improve population health in order to qualify for federal financial incentives.

20 Jul 2010

Vertos Medical announces 12-week data from MiDAS I clinical study for lumbar spinal stenosis

Medical device company Vertos Medical Inc. has announced the unveiling of 12-week clinical data from its prospective, 75-patient MiDAS I (mild Decompression Alternative to open Surgery) study that further validate the safety and efficacy of mild for the treatment of lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS). Consistent with the positive six-week study results released in March and May, the new MiDAS I data demonstrate that mild patients continued to experience statistically significant improvement in pain, physical function and mobility 12 weeks following treatment.

20 Jul 2010

Practice nurses increase GP short consultations

The increased role of nurses in general practice is the primary driver of recent increases in short GP consultations, a general practice researcher from the School of Public Health says.

19 Jul 2010

International Health News: German hospitals worry over end of compulsory military service; Britain tops study on end-of-life care

The Wall Street Journal: German hospitals are worried that the end of compulsory military service could hurt their workforce as most young German men end up fulfilling their duties there and in other public-service venues. "Increasingly … conscription's main impact has little to do with military training at all.

19 Jul 2010

e-MDs selected for IFMC's HITREC Preferred Vendor List

e-MDs, an industry leader in the development and implementation of electronic health record (EHR) and practice management (PM) solutions, announced they have been chosen for the IFMC's Health Information Technology Regional Extension Center (HITREC) Preferred Vendor List. The list represents the best products designed to help smaller practices and clinics achieve meaningful use of EHRs.

19 Jul 2010

Today's OpEds: Public opinion and health reform; Hospitals and cost cuts; Medicare fraud 'gusher'

Less than four months after Congress approved historic health care reform legislation, the Obama administration has been making good progress in bringing some early benefits to fruition and issuing rules to guide the reform process. Despite all of the critics' hype and scare tactics, some polls suggest that the public perception of reform is slowly improving (7/18).

19 Jul 2010

First Edition: July 19, 2010

Today's headlines include the latest news regarding the politics of implementing health reform as well as developments from the international AIDS conference now underway in Vienna.

19 Jul 2010

Sen. Roberts lashes out at recess appointment of Berwick

"Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts is taking aim at President Barack Obama for making a recess appointment of Dr. Donald Berwick as the new head of the federal agency overseeing Medicare and Medicaid," CNN reported.

19 Jul 2010

AHRQ: 12M people with mental health, substance abuse problems visited emergency department in 2007

Nearly 12 million visits made to U.S. hospital emergency departments in 2007 involved people with a mental disorder, substance abuse problem, or both, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. This accounts for one in eight of the 95 million visits to emergency departments by adults that year.

17 Jul 2010

Montana hospitals to get increased Medicare payments; Federal funding for New Orleans health clinics is expiring

"Come this fall, several of Montana's hospitals will start benefitting financially from an obscure provision in the federal health reform bill that ups Medicare payments in 'frontier states.' It's worth up to $4.5 million a year for some of Montana's largest hospitals, which for years have been getting paid less for Medicare-covered patients than hospitals in urban areas. Hospitals in Billings, Missoula and Kalispell are the big beneficiaries. While the money may not seem like much in Montana's multibillion-dollar health industry, it's certainly helpful, hospital executives say — and it's part of the bill's overall effort to improve what many believe is an imperfect system of paying for health care" (Dennison, 7/15).

17 Jul 2010

Patient advocacy groups, home medical associations call for end to Medicare competitive bidding program

In a letter signed by 58 patient advocacy groups and home medical equipment associations, the American Association for Homecare urged Congress to pass H.R. 3790, a bill to repeal the Medicare competitive bidding program for durable medical equipment in a budget-neutral manner. The bill currently has 252 cosponsors in the U.S. House of Representatives.

17 Jul 2010

New Jersey District Court denies Teva's motion to overturn jury verdict in generic Protonix litigation

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. announced today that the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey denied Teva's motion to overturn an April 23, 2010, jury verdict finding the patent in suit not invalid. The Court also denied Wyeth and Nycomed's request for FDA to reset the date of Teva's final approval to January 2011, based on the fact that Teva has patent defenses remaining at the District Court, including patent misuse.

17 Jul 2010

Medicare News and Research

Obama resubmits Berwick nomination to Senate, Kagan responds to health law concerns

Senate moves to extend unemployment benefits, no COBRA subsidy extension

Gentiva preliminary second-quarter total net revenues increase 4% to $297 million

MedeAnalytics 10 software platform released

First Edition: July 20, 2010

UnitedHealth Group second-quarter consolidated revenues increase 7% to $23.3 billion

Policies that weaken ability of payers to detect and prevent waste, fraud, and abuse must be rejected: PCMA

New report compares efficacy of Plavix, Effient in treating patients with ACS

Proactive Patient Outreach system, patient registry to improve care coordination, population health outcomes

Vertos Medical announces 12-week data from MiDAS I clinical study for lumbar spinal stenosis

Practice nurses increase GP short consultations

International Health News: German hospitals worry over end of compulsory military service; Britain tops study on end-of-life care

e-MDs selected for IFMC's HITREC Preferred Vendor List

Today's OpEds: Public opinion and health reform; Hospitals and cost cuts; Medicare fraud 'gusher'

First Edition: July 19, 2010

Sen. Roberts lashes out at recess appointment of Berwick

AHRQ: 12M people with mental health, substance abuse problems visited emergency department in 2007

Montana hospitals to get increased Medicare payments; Federal funding for New Orleans health clinics is expiring

Patient advocacy groups, home medical associations call for end to Medicare competitive bidding program

New Jersey District Court denies Teva's motion to overturn jury verdict in generic Protonix litigation

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