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As heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the U.S., technological advances pertaining to the treatment and prevention of heart disease, such as drug-eluting stents, have led to better patient care, but also have added to the rise of healthcare expenditures, according to the 33rd annual trend report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The administration of President Barack Obama is requesting $911 billion for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in its 2011 federal budget proposal, with an additional $110 million requested for continued health IT efforts.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has posted a notice of final rule in the Jan. 28 Federal Register requiring each state to adopt a system to report certain adverse licensure actions taken against licensed healthcare practitioners to the Secretary of HHS, effective March 1.
The preliminary injunction and expedited discovery motions, related to the American College of Cardiology’s (ACC) recent suit against the Department of Health and Human Services over the Medicare 2010 Payment Rule, was dismissed from court Tuesday, according to a letter ACC CEO Jack Lewin, MD, sent to members.
The American College of Cardiology (ACC) has filed a complaint against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in U.S. District Court, alleging that Sebelius, in her capacity as the HHS secretary, unlawfully adopted the payment rates for cardiology services in the 2010 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) by using an invalid Physician Practice Information Survey (PPIS) in a manner that “threatens access to care for patients and…increases medical care costs.”
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation have estimated that the direct spending and revenue effects of enacting the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act incorporating the manager’s amendment would yield a net reduction in federal deficits of $132 billion between 2010 and 2019.
The U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday passed a $636 billion defense appropriations bill, which included a provision to delay the 21.2 percent reduction in Medicare physician payment until March 2010.
David Blumenthal, MD, the national coordinator for health IT, today announced plans to make available $80 million in grants to help develop and strengthen the health IT workforce in the community college setting.
In 2007, a reported 4.2 million Americans purchased 27.9 million anticoagulant prescriptions, totaling $905.2 million, according to a survey published by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
Written by Jeff Byers
The Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General (OIG) will commence new studies regarding Medicare Part B imaging payments and the appropriateness of many emergency department scans, according to the recent OIG Fiscal Year 2010 Work Plan.
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Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Department of Labor (DOL) Secretary Hilda Solis have released a total of nearly $1 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) awards to help healthcare providers advance the adoption and meaningful use of health IT and train workers for the healthcare jobs.
A $3.5 million, three-and-a-half-year study, will gather data from 3,500 patients with implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) to analyze the risks and benefits associated with ICDs in patients who are at risk of death from ventricular fibrillation.
It is not appropriate to make a broad recommendation for a public disclosure process for adverse events in hospitals, according to a recent memorandum from the Office of Inspector General (OIG) at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
The Department of Justice has announced that Wheaton Community Hospital, the city of Wheaton, Minn., and Stanley Gallagher, MD, have agreed to pay $846,461 to settle a whistleblower suit charging that they violated the False Claims Act.
Spectranetics, a medical device manufacturer of Colorado Springs, Colo., has agreed to pay U.S. government agencies $4.9 million in civil damages plus a $100,000 forfeiture to resolve claims pursued by the FDA and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement against the company, the Justice Department reported on Dec. 29, 2009.
The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) plans to award a contract for a targeted design study to inform the creation of an all-payor, all-claims database of claims records.
After an attempt by 30 people to submit over $61 million in false Medicare claims, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Justice (DoJ) have teamed up to augment current task force operations under the Healthcare Fraud Prevention & Enforcement Action Team.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) have significantly revised their calculations of Medicare fee-for-service error rates in 2009.
Clinical trial sites that do not adhere to the language written in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 requiring facilities to divulge privacy breaches to their patients, could pay up to a $50,000 penalty per violation.
The Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., issued its long-awaited America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009 on Wednesday, which would cost $856 billion over 10 years, and is scheduled to begin committee action on Sept. 22.
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Middle age introduces itself in many ways; one is atrial fibrillation (AF). My onset of AF seems to have coincided with a mountain bike accident in the woods of North Carolina that resulted in some cracked ribs.
The use of health IT to reduce rehospitalizations will be welcome but also disruptive, said Stephen Jencks, an independent consultant in healthcare safety during a Feb. 24 webinar on the potential use of health IT to mitigate rehospitalizations, sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).