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Senate action on Medicare MD Pay Bill might be delayed due to Medicaid, war funding efforts, AARP lobbyist says

Senate action on legislation to delay a 10.6% Medicare physician fee cut might take a back seat to a supplemental spending bill for the Iraq war and a measure to delay new Medicaid regulations, AARP's lead lobbyist said on Friday, CQ HealthBeat reports. Kirsten Sloan, head of AARP's health legislative team, said efforts on the other two bills might delay the Medicare package until late May or early June.

6 May 2008

CMS announces decision on Medicare coverage of artificial hearts, long-term acute care hospital reimbursements

CMS recently announced a decision on Medicare coverage of artificial hearts and a final rule on reimbursements for long-term acute care hospitals.

6 May 2008

Some states to ask Congress to regulate marketing of private Medicare plans

State officials soon will ask Congress to grant them more regulatory authority over the marketing of private Medicare drug benefit and Medicare Advantage plans to respond to continuing complaints of aggressive marketing practices, the New York Times reports. In a draft report by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, state officials propose creating a set of marketing standards for private Medicare plans that states, if they adopt them, would enforce.

6 May 2008

Kidney disease substantially worsens in a fourth of African Americans despite therapy for hypertension

The best available treatment for chronic kidney disease from high blood pressure did not keep the disease from substantially worsening in about a fourth of African-Americans studied, according to long-term results of a National Institutes of Health study published April 28, 2008, in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

5 May 2008

HHS Secretary Leavitt urges lawmakers, public to 'start now' to make changes to Medicare

HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt said Tuesday that it is "simply unreasonable" to think Medicare can maintain its solvency without changes to the program and that if "we start now, the change can be made over time and with genuine fairness," CQ HealthBeat reports.

30 Apr 2008

Presumptive GOP Presidential nominee McCain provides further detail on his health care proposal

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) on Tuesday in a speech at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute in Tampa, Fla., detailed his health care proposal and for the first time proposed a plan to help individuals who cannot obtain private health insurance because of pre-existing medical conditions, the Miami Herald reports (Dorschner, Miami Herald, 4/30).

30 Apr 2008

Costs for elder care increase for fifth consecutive year, study finds

Costs for nursing homes, assisted living facilities and some in-home care services have increased for a fifth consecutive year and might continue to increase as a result of an expected shortage of long-term health care workers, according to a study released on Tuesday by Genworth Financial, the AP/Houston Chronicle reports.

30 Apr 2008

More than half of U.S. hospitals insolvent, near insolvency, study finds

More than half of U.S. hospitals are "teetering on the brink of insolvency" or have become insolvent because they do not treat an adequate number of patients to provide sufficient revenue, according to a study recently released by Alvarez & Marsal, the Wall Street Journal reports.

30 Apr 2008

House members discuss SCHIP, Medicare, Medicaid during debate in Cincinnati

A bipartisan group of eight House members on Monday discussed several health care issues -- such as SCHIP, Medicare and Medicaid -- during a debate at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, The Hill reports.

29 Apr 2008

McCain promotes health care proposal at Miami Children's Hospital

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) on Monday at the Miami Children's Hospital promoted his health care proposal, which he said would "put families in charge," USA Today reports (Jackson, USA Today, 4/29).

29 Apr 2008

Humana reports Q1 revenue increase driven by Medicare Advantage plan performance

Humana on Monday announced that first-quarter revenue increased by 12% to $6.96 billion from $6.20 billion in the period last year, driven by higher-than-average enrollment in the company's Medicare Advantage plans, the Wall Street Journal reports.

29 Apr 2008

Medicare costs estimated at $21.1 billion for 5 years of care for elderly cancer patients

The cost of cancer care for elderly Medicare patients varies by tumor type, stage at diagnosis, phase of care, and survival, according to a new study published online April 29 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

29 Apr 2008

Wall Street Journal examines Presidential candidate proposals to address health care costs

Presidential candidates Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) each have announced proposals that seek to reduce health care costs, but "it is unclear how many of the candidates' ideas could actually make a dent in the rising cost of care," the Wall Street Journal reports

28 Apr 2008

HHS Secretary Leavitt says rising Medicare costs will cause generational divide

HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt in an interview with the Washington Times said he is concerned that rising Medicare spending could "divide our nation along generational lines."

26 Apr 2008

Special needs plans seek to avoid moratorium by providing more data to congress

Officials from special needs plan providers said Thursday at a Capitol Hill briefing that they will provide Congress with more data on the services the plans provide to beneficiaries with severe chronic medical conditions, CQ HealthBeat reports.

26 Apr 2008

Leavitt calls on successor to continue Bush administration's 'Four Cornerstones' plan

HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt on Wednesday urged his successor to continue with the Bush administration's "four cornerstones" initiative that promotes collaborative efforts to improve the national health care system and reduce costs, CQ HealthBeat reports.

24 Apr 2008

CMS adds searchable database of lowest-quality nursing homes nationwide to web site

CMS on Thursday added to the Nursing Home Compare Web site a searchable database with the names of nursing homes that rank in the lowest 5% to 10% in quality based on state inspection results, the Wall Street Journal reports

24 Apr 2008

Self-referring physicians behind increase in diagnostic imaging

Physicians who refer patients to their own facilities or machines for scans account for much of the increase in diagnostic imaging ordered for privately insured patients said a Baylor College of Medicine expert in a commentary that appears in the current issue of the journal Medical Care.

24 Apr 2008

Blacks on Medicaid carry heavier cancer burden than whites do

African-American patients receiving Medicaid benefits have markedly higher rates of breast, prostate, colorectal and lung cancer than whites on Medicaid according to a recent study.

24 Apr 2008

Medicare prescription drug benefit improved access to medications for most seniors, but sickest seniors continued skipping pills because of cost issues, study finds

The percentage of seniors who said they skipped taking medications because of costs declined after the Medicare prescription drug benefit took effect in January 2006, but the sickest beneficiaries still skip prescriptions because they cannot afford to pay for them, according to a study published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Reuters reports.

23 Apr 2008

Medicare News and Research

Senate action on Medicare MD Pay Bill might be delayed due to Medicaid, war funding efforts, AARP lobbyist says

CMS announces decision on Medicare coverage of artificial hearts, long-term acute care hospital reimbursements

Some states to ask Congress to regulate marketing of private Medicare plans

Kidney disease substantially worsens in a fourth of African Americans despite therapy for hypertension

HHS Secretary Leavitt urges lawmakers, public to 'start now' to make changes to Medicare

Presumptive GOP Presidential nominee McCain provides further detail on his health care proposal

Costs for elder care increase for fifth consecutive year, study finds

More than half of U.S. hospitals insolvent, near insolvency, study finds

House members discuss SCHIP, Medicare, Medicaid during debate in Cincinnati

McCain promotes health care proposal at Miami Children's Hospital

Humana reports Q1 revenue increase driven by Medicare Advantage plan performance

Medicare costs estimated at $21.1 billion for 5 years of care for elderly cancer patients

Wall Street Journal examines Presidential candidate proposals to address health care costs

HHS Secretary Leavitt says rising Medicare costs will cause generational divide

Special needs plans seek to avoid moratorium by providing more data to congress

Leavitt calls on successor to continue Bush administration's 'Four Cornerstones' plan

CMS adds searchable database of lowest-quality nursing homes nationwide to web site

Self-referring physicians behind increase in diagnostic imaging

Blacks on Medicaid carry heavier cancer burden than whites do

Medicare prescription drug benefit improved access to medications for most seniors, but sickest seniors continued skipping pills because of cost issues, study finds

Achieving and maintaining ISO/IEC 27001 and BS 10012 certifications

Expanding research and clinical options for children with cancer

Examining how pain could play a direct protective role in the gut

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