As mortality rates have improved overall, there have also been improvements in previously-seen racial disparities between the surgical mortality of black and white patients, with reductions occurring primarily within hospitals, rather than between hospitals.

Patients entering the supposedly sterile environment of a hospital may not realize that at least one in 25 patients acquire an infection while in the facility. To reduce these infections, Mark Sklansky, MD, suggests everyone leave the handshakes at home.

Robert Bart, MD, has been appointed as new chief medical information officer (CMIO) for the health services division of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC).

The majority of health plans responding to a Avalere Health survey said they have favorable attitudes towards value-based contracts, though smaller numbers of insurers are actually pursuing or have entered into those agreements.

A single patient’s astronomical medical bills may have been a factor in Iowa’s largest insurer, Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield, exiting the state’s individual market for 2018. Talking about that patient, however, may have put a company executive in violation of HIPAA.

Dana Gelb Safran, ScD, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts' (Blue Cross) Chief Performance Measurement and Improvement Officer and Senior Vice President, Enterprise Analytics, was recently appointed by U.S. Comptroller General and head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office Gene L. Dodaro to serve on the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC).

In the ICD-9 era, there were universally accepted benchmarks to measure coding professionals’ productivity. Now, more than 18 months after the ICD-10 implementation date, the challenge is to do the same for the new coding system.

Emergency department services like suturing a wound or interpreting a CT scan may result in patients being charged up to 12.6 times more than what Medicare would pay, with minorities and uninsured patients the most likely to be hit by the markups.