Senate Republicans have decided not to vote on the Graham-Cassidy legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), putting an end to months of efforts to pass a repeal bill before a Sept. 30 deadline for it to clear the Senate with a simple majority.

Following up on an earlier lawsuit against Tacoma, Washington’s St. Joseph Medical Center, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson has filed a similar suit against the 110-bed Capital Medical Center in Olympia, claiming it aggressively demanded payment from patients without screening or informing them about charity care.

Sept. 25 ended up being a rough day for supporters of the Graham-Cassidy legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), beginning with the bill’s only scheduled hearing being interrupted by protesters shouting, “No cuts to Medicaid, save our liberty.”

The namesakes of the Graham-Cassidy bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) argued the law is “broken” in a CNN healthcare debate, with Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, arguing members of Congress should be focusing on short-term fixes discussed by both parties and leave larger overhauls for later.  

Triage sorts patients into five levels—with one being the most critical—but often patients are clustered in level 3 or sorted incorrectly. Researchers have developed an electronic triage tool to improve patient care, helping improve physician decision-making with machine learning, according to the study published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine.

Beyond making practices more efficient and reducing administrative costs, offering new options for making payments and scheduling appointments may be the key for medical practices to attract new patients and keep them satisfied, according to a survey released at the 2017 Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) conference.

An appointment at the largest public healthcare system in the U.S. has created a vacancy at the second-largest, as Los Angeles County Health Agency director Mitchell Katz, MD, has been nominated to take over as president and CEO at NYC Health + Hospitals.

 The Leapfrog Group, a Washington D.C.-based organization aiming to improve health care quality for consumers and purchasers, announced today the agenda for the first National Health Care Ratings Summit, which will be held on December 6 and 7 in Arlington, Virginia.