HHS and CMS have launched a set of new payment models, dubbed the Primary Cares Initiative, that aim to transform primary care through value-based options. The new models will also test financial risk and performance-based payments for primary care practitioners and clinicians.

Ten years from now, more than 14 million middle-class Americans will be elderly, mobility-limited and in need of more healthcare services and specialized senior housing than they’ll be able to afford.

Medicare’s site-neutral policy, which pays outpatient hospital sites like they’re independent doctors’ offices, is turning out to be as unpopular in practice as it was in theory—as least among hospitals.

A study backing a bill that would greatly increase nurse staffing in Illinois hospitals by mandating certain nurse-to-patient ratios has drawn heat from the Illinois Health and Hospital Association (IHA).

Hospitals in the sixth most populous state stand to save $1.4 billion by collectively adding about 20,000 nurses.

Seven years from now, Medicare Part A will only be able to reimburse hospitals 89% of costs for hospital stays and related services. Twenty years later, the portion CMS can pay will fall to 77%.

More than 90% of healthcare consumers were surprised by a medical bill in 2018, while nearly three-quarters were confused by a bill’s content and more than half could not pay a bill in full if it totaled more than $1,000.

America’s opioid crisis cost the federal government some $26 billion in lost tax revenue and state governments $11.8 billion in lost revenue between 2000 and 2016, according to a recent analysis.