News Room

The federal health exchange website is live this week for window shopping and people will begin to purchase new health insurance there on Saturday. But the Affordable Care Act still has many political and legal challenges ahead. ROBERT...
Care coordination networks are a mainstay of the Affordable Care Act’s cost reduction goals. Accountable care organizations, or ACOs, are the most widely recognized of these networks, yet by no means is design of these business...
Harvard Pilgrim Health Care is working with health care providers throughout the region on an innovative, multi-faceted plan to better coordinate behavioral and medical health care for patients. As part of this initiative, Harvard Pilgrim...
A lame duck session of Congress begins in just a few days. Democrats will try to pass whatever legislation they can and Republicans will try to hold off on anything until they have full control of the House and Senate. In a nutshell, it...
This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Marci Nielsen, Chief Exectutive Officer of the Patient Centered Primary Care Collaborative, a consortium of over a thousand stakeholders across the health care industry...
Federal funding for three programs that enhance access to care in underserved areas while bolstering primary care is set to expire in 2015. That prospect has dozens of medical and other groups urging lawmakers to extend the funding. The...
Using a nurse case-manager-based collaborative primary care team can cut depressive symptoms in patients with type 2 diabetes, according to a study published online Oct. 14 in Diabetes Care. Jeffrey A. Johnson, Ph.D., from the University...
Health care providers are under tremendous pressure to achieve the Triple Aim of better health for designated populations, better care experiences for patients and reduced cost of care. It comes at a time of enormous transition in health...
The Republicans' congressional victories this week position them to take aim at significant provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that could endanger its long-term viability. But only if they can agree on a plan of...
 Payment for physicians who care for Medicaid patients has traditionally lagged behind Medicare payment, but federal government policy in the past two years has made strides to change that. That's according CMS Deputy Administrator Cindy...
If former Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was the poster child for the pitfalls of health care reform, then Patrick Conway might be the hidden face of the law's promises. A pediatrician and top administrator at...
For the past ten months on Health Affairs Blog, we’ve been discussing the evidence for different models of payment reform, examining everything from pay for performance to nonpayment. But no discussion of payment reform is complete without...
Patient-centered medical homes have long been thought to reduce healthcare costs. A recent study published in the journal Health Services Research confirms that they actually do. The study looked at PCMHs recognized by the National...
A coalition of primary care physicians is calling on Congress to act quickly to extend higher Medicaid payments before federal funding runs out at the end of the year. Medicaid pay parity, which pays physicians at Medicare rates for...
Highmark Inc.'s Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) program, which launched in October 2012, is showing positive results with statistical improvements in patient care, according to company data. "We continue to be very encouraged by the...
Highmark Inc.'s effort to improve the way medical care is provided is showing results. Highmark's patient-centered medical home uses a team approach in caring for patients instead of the traditional patient-doctor relationship. Among the...
The healthcare breakthrough of the 21st century may not come in the form of a miracle drug from the pharmaceutical industry. Rather, it's more likely to emerge from the ways caregivers interact and motivate patients. Characterizing...
Facing the fact that just 5 percent of the patient population was responsible for nearly half of its spending, one health organization has tried some fairly radical changes. In Utah, Intermountain Healthcare decided to address the problem...
Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell today announced an initiative that will fund successful applicants who work directly with medical providers to rethink and redesign their practices, moving from systems driven by...
A new study from Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) offers some early insights into the effects of increasing numbers of emailed communications on doctors, suggesting that reimbursement models and physician workflow may...

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