Healthcare groups including HIMSS, AMIA and CHIME have written a letter to members of Congress asking for a national patient identifier to increase patient safety and the electronic exchange of data.

Mylan, the manufacturer of EpiPen, will pay $465 million to the federal government to “resolve questions” about whether the autoinjector was misclassified as a generic drug, therefore reducing the quarterly rebates Mylan owed.

Adding fields for medical device information on claims reimbursement forms would help CMS better track how much Medicare spends on recalled or defective devices, according to HHS’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG).

Substandard care at hospitals operated by the Indian Health Service isn’t a new issue, but a new report offered some specific reasons why the facilities have such severe deficiencies.

A new law in California will require hospitals in Los Angeles County to report incidence of certain “superbugs,” the Los Angeles Times reported. California is one of roughly half the U.S. states that had not required the reporting in the past. 

Nashville, Tennessee-based Ardent Health Services and LHP Hospital Group of Plano, Texas, have entered into a merger agreement, the companies announced Oct. 5.

While larger insurers like UnitedHealthcare and Aetna have complained of losing hundreds of millions of dollars on the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges, Molina has turned a slim profit by applying its Medicaid management strategies to the new marketplace.

The controversy over the price increases for EpiPens isn’t going away, as Mylan is now being accused by CMS of overcharging Medicare and Medicaid by classifying the autoinjector as a generic drug.