Americans who watch at least a few hours of TV each week are used to getting urged to ask their doctors about all sorts of medications that, chances are, they really don’t need.  

The Healthcare Leadership Council (HLC), a coalition of executives representing health providers, insurers, manufacturers and patient advocacy groups, has issued six recommendations it believes can be implemented today to improve healthcare in the U.S.

A recent question-and-answer article prepared by the Associated Press and published by the Chicago Tribune (and others) examined the impact Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s death  could have on existing cases in 2016. 

CMS has published a final rule that requires healthcare providers and suppliers receiving funds from Medicare Part A and Part B to report and return overpayments within 60 days of first identifying them. 

HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell spoke to reporters last week about the Affordable Care Act’s 2016 open enrollment figures and the future of healthcare in the U.S. 

Surgical residents who are allowed to work longer hours than currently allowed so that they can stay with or stabilize patients do not show any signs of putting their patients at risk, according to a recent study published by the New England Journal of Medicine. 

The California Department of Public Health fined the Community Regional Medical Center $86,625 after a hospital employee left a towel inside a patient following abdominal surgery, the Fresno Bee reports. This is the hospital’s fourth penalty since 2007.

A recent report examining employer-sponsored private insurance claims data found that basing healthcare decisions on Medicare data might not be the best practice. The researchers found that the correlation between total spending per Medicare beneficiary and total spending per privately insured beneficiary was 0.14 in 2011, while the correlation for inpatient spending was 0.267.