The report from Illinois' Cook County inspector general pinned much of the blame on the system’s bureaucracy, citing “a significant number of registration clerks, coders and billers who do not possess adequate self-motivation or the required skill sets and knowledge base” to do the jobs they’ve been assigned.

Lori Reilly, executive vice president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), spoke at a panel hosted by the Alliance for Health Policy on May 15, saying the group had “serious concerns” with the plan.

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics, a British independent monitoring body, in a recent briefing note, has expressed concern regarding the ethical implications of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare.

Stigmatizing language in patient medical records impacts physicians’ attitudes toward clinical decision making, according to a study published in the May 2018 issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

CMS Administrator Seema Verma, MPH, spoke at a May 15 Washington Post event focused on health policy, offering some hints on where her agency’s Medicaid and Affordable Care Act (ACA) regulations may be headed.

Health systems have made upgrades to revenue cycle solutions one of their top priorities in recent years, but C-suite leaders may not be happy with the results when it comes to reducing denials, according to a survey from Dimensional Insight and HIMSS Analytics.

Until 1980, the U.S. was similar to other countries in per capita spending and life expectancy. Princeton University sociology professor Paul Starr, PhD, said high inflation and sluggish economic growth in the late 1970s hurt countries’ abilities to afford healthcare. The difference was “other countries have been able to put limits on healthcare prices and spending” while the U.S. relied on market forces.

CMS has approved an extension of Maryland’s model of offering a fixed payment for most hospital services, allowing physician practices and nursing homes to voluntarily participate in a program that has saved Medicare hundreds of millions of dollars.