Reporting for the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) is particularly vulnerable to fraud, OIG said, because it relies on clinicians on submitting their own data—and allows them to resubmit data to change their score.

Israel-based Teva Pharmaceuticals, the largest generic drugmaker in the world, will be laying off 14,000 employees, a quarter of its workforce worldwide, including “significant” cuts to its 7,000 U.S. workers.

CMS’s move to cut Medicare payments made through the 340B drug discount programs would see the biggest impact in California, New York and North Carolina, according to an analysis by Avalere Health, though for most hospitals it will reduce their total Part B revenue by less than 5 percent.

Providers represented by the American Medical Group Association (AMGA) expect more of their business to come from risk-based products in 2019, with government revenues moving from Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) towards Medicare Advantage and shared risk accounting for a greater share of revenue in commercial settings.

The Massachusetts Health Policy Commission will review the impacts of a proposed merger between Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Burlington, Massachusetts-based Lahey Health and three other hospitals.

HHS is fighting the opioid crisis with data crunching. Started by HHS Chief Technology Officer Bruce Greenstein, the code-a-thon brought information technology professionals together to develop an impactful approach to reducing opioid overdoses and deaths.

Physicians who played a video game showing a young doctor treating severe trauma patients were better able to distinguish patients in need of higher level of care, according to a study published in The BMJ.

Large, for-profit hospital chains HCA, Tenet Healthcare and Community Health Systems (CHS) may come the biggest losers if recently announced mergers of nonprofit systems go through, as hundreds of hospitals will no longer be options for expansion through acquisition.