Six years after former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin famously warned Americans about the approach of “death panels” if the Affordable Care Act passed into law, the political firestorm that subsequently flared up and died down may be about to re-ignite.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is funding four new studies that will tap into the national, voluntary research Million Veteran Program (MVP) which has enrolled more than 390,000 veterans to date.

The Global Center for Health Innovation is holding the Cleveland Medical Hackathon in September. 

During the latest and third ICD-10 end-to-end testing week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services accepted 90 percent of submitted claims. 

Emdeon has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Altegra Health, a national provider of technology and intervention platforms, for $910 million. 

The July 3 merger announcement by Aetna and Humana, two of the country’s five largest health insurers, unsurprisingly drew blanket coverage across the media over the holiday weekend. Three questions have so far dominated the discussion: Will the $37 billion deal survive antitrust review? Will Anthem and Cigna’s rekindled talks produce the same result? And what will all this mean for healthcare consumers? 

The American Medical Association has finally shifted from fighting the ICD-10 implementation to efforts to help physicians be ready in time for the Oct. 1 deadline. 

Full-year 2014 financial data is now available on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Open Payments website to help consumers better understand financial relationships between physicians and drug and medical device companies.