At his last all-staff meeting at CMS, the agency’s acting administrator, Andy Slavitt, recounted the successes and challenges of his tenure while encouraging employees to welcome his replacement from the incoming Trump administration.

In a study examining what specialists may charge to out-of-network or uninsured patients, radiologists, neurosurgeons and emergency physicians ranked near the top of the list of highest markups compared to Medicare rates. 

The Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) has developed a set of guidelines for promoting family-centered care in intensive care units to lessen the effects of post-intensive care syndrome.

While the individual mandate would be eliminated under the current plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a separate idea to keep more people in the risk pool has emerged: auto-enrollment in a “bare-bones” health plan. 

CMS has announced which clinicians and accountable care organizations are participating in four alternative payment models (APMs) in 2017: the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) Next Generation ACO Model, the Comprehensive End-Stage Renal Disease Care Model (CEC) and Comprehensive Primary Care Plus (CPC+) Model. 

McKesson has agreed to pay $150 million and suspend sales of controlled substances from distribution centers in four states to settle allegations that it failed to notice and report pharmacies’ suspicious orders of opioid painkillers.

In an effort to better dispense insulin to diabetics, scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are developing a “smart” patch that will monitor blood glucose and release insulin when levels increase.

Replacing the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Medicare reform, malpractice lawsuits and differing definitions of “coverage” versus “access” were all discussed in the first Senate hearing of President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to run HHS, U.S. Rep. Tom Price, MD, R-Georgia.