Health systems strapped for resources worry reporting on new quality measures and transitioning to interoperability as part of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ final rule will be overly burdensome. As a result, some hospitals want CMS to offer adequate financial and technological support. For larger systems with deeper resources, the rule doesn’t seem to be a big lift. The 2023 Medicare Hospital Inpatient […]
Dr. Anthony Fauci is preparing to leave the public stage — but health experts are worried the toxic atmosphere that tailed him will hang around for years to come. Opinions of Fauci among the general public cleave along partisan lines, but most experts think he did about as good a job as anyone could in managing a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. They […]
The latest covid-19 surge, caused by a shifting mix of quickly evolving omicron subvariants, appears to be waning, with cases and hospitalizations beginning to fall. Like past covid waves, this one will leave a lingering imprint in the form of long covid, an ill-defined catchall term for a set of symptoms that can include debilitating fatigue, difficulty breathing, chest pain, […]
A state court has blocked North Dakota’s trigger abortion ban, which would prohibit most abortions in the state, as it was set to go into effect on Friday. Judge Bruce Romanick ruled Thursday that the state law, which bans the procedure unless it is necessary to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest, should […]
Suzanne BeHanna initially turned down an experimental but potentially lifesaving cancer treatment. Three years ago, the newlywed, then 62, was sick with stage 4 lymphoma, sick from two failed rounds of chemotherapy, and sick of living in a trailer park near the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. It was fall 2019, and treatment had forced her […]
California regulators intend to award coveted five-year Medicaid managed care contracts to Molina Healthcare, Centene subsidiary Health Net and Elevance Health’s Anthem Blue Cross Partnership Plan, the state Department of Health Care Services announced Thursday. Medi-Cal is the largest Medicaid program and covered 14.6 million lower-income people as of February, according to the most recent state data. The contracts run from Jan. 1, […]
The Benefits of Telesitting for Clinicians and Patients Prior to the pandemic, many healthcare organizations pursued telesitting as an operational efficiency and cost-cutting measure. A PCT can simultaneously monitor around 12 patients remotely. They can talk to patients if needed, deploy automated responses in different languages and ring an alarm if a patient needs immediate help. An organization no longer […]
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has awarded one of its ACO REACH contracts to Upward Health, a multidisciplinary at-home care provider. ACO REACH is a risk-sharing program between companies and the government, standing for Accountable Care Organization (ACO) Realizing Equity, Access, and Community Health. The New York-based Upward was one of 22 providers to receive a contract […]
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) mishandled up to 1 in 3 veterans’ claims relating to water contamination at Camp LeJeune, according to a report released Thursday by the department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG). Some 1 million people may have been exposed to contaminated water at the training facility between August 1953 and December 1987, according to the OIG report. OIG […]
The dominant challenge for developing targeted cancer therapies is finding the right target. Drug hunters look for a protein that’s abundant on a cancer cells but also absent on healthy cells, so that the therapy’s effect is concentrated on tumors. But sometimes, the effect still spills over to healthy tissue, sparking dangerous complications. The cancer immunotherapies now available have […]