A jury in Ohio convicted cardiologist Harold Persaud of performing unnecessary tests and procedures and overbilling Medicare and private insurers by $7.2 million.

Hundreds of hospitals and health systems may have settled with the U.S. Justice Department in a probe into the overuse of implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs), according to a Modern Healthcare report.

Medtronic plc  (NYSE:MDT) today announced it has acquired Lazarus Effect, a Campbell, Calif.-based and privately-held medical device company focused on acute ischemic stroke products that facilitate the capture and removal of clots.

Zoll acquired Kyma Medical Technologies, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based developer of technologies to measure early signs of congestive heart failure. Terms of the deal were not announced.

A newly FDA-approved drug to treat congestive heart failure is cost-effective, while a device to treat the same disease is priced 60 percent higher than it should be, according to an Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) analysis. The researchers noted the two interventions could become the first breakthroughs in heart failure management in more than a decade.

Merge Healthcare Incorporated (NASDAQ:MRGE), a leading provider of clinical systems and innovations that seek to transform healthcare, entered into an agreement to provide its Merge Hemo(TM) solution to Baptist Health System of Birmingham, Alabama.

An Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) analysis found that the price that best represents the benefits of newly FDA-approved proprotein convertase subtilisin kexin type 9 (PCSK9) inhibitors should be approximately two-thirds lower than the wholesale acquisition cost (WAC) of the medications.

Even as pharmaceutical companies develop safer and more effective drugs, the costs of those medications are becoming a concern for healthcare executives, hospitals, payers and patients.