HealthFirst Financial, a national leader in patient financing, has earned for the second time the prestigious Peer Review by HFMA designation, keeping the company on the Healthcare Financial Management Association’s Short List of “high value, high quality healthcare business solutions.”

Leaving the hospital against the advice of physicians is a rising trend with negative consequences. In an effort to understand why patients chose to leave hospital care early, researchers have published findings in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society to assist in further research and provide answers on how healthcare providers can stop this trend.

Oregon-based provider and insurer Zoom is being investigated for allegations it tampered with medical claims to make sure it didn’t have to pay into the risk adjustment pool for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces.

CMS has lifted Medicare Advantage (MA) sanctions on Cigna, allowing the insurer to market both MA and Medicare Part D prescription drug plans with effective dates beginning July 1.

Patients living with type 1 diabetes are constantly tinkering with glucose monitors and insulin pumps but all Dana Lewis, a health communications professional, has to do is text her pancreas. The “pancreas” combines an insulin pump and glucose monitor and connects to her smartphone to cut the hundreds of interactions conventional type 1 diabetes requires to just six a day.

Predicting a cancer patient's chance of survival allows individuals to make informed decisions, but many techniques are not especially accurate. In a study, published in BMJ, researchers tested a new web-based survival calculator in patients with bowel cancer.

Malnutrition in surgical patients raises mortality rates, readmissions and poor outcomes while also reducing recovery time and quality of life. Researchers at Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH) in Baltimore have published a study in The Annals of Thoracic Surgery evaluating a new screening tool capable of identifying patients at risk for malnutrition.

A CMS report on patterns in state-level healthcare spending showed the expansion of Medicaid eligibility led to an increase in total spending in expansion states, but a decline in spending per enrollee.