Kidney Dialysis Company Expands Into The Hospital Business
DaVita HealthCare Partners, a kidney dialysis company, is picking up on a new way insurers and the government are paying for health care — by keeping people healthy through primary care.
Replacing An Ambulance With A Station Wagon
There’s nothing like an ambulance when you really need one, but they’re expensive, and a lot of people who call an ambulance could be better served with a different, cheaper kind of care.
Are Your Medical Records Vulnerable To Theft?
Here’s what you need to know if your records are stored electronically (and they probably are).
Survey: Insurance Rates Lag In Health Law Holdout States
A Gallup poll released Tuesday says that the Affordable Care Act is significantly increasing the number of Americans with health insurance, especially in states that are embracing the law. It echoes previous Gallup surveys, and similar findings by the Urban Institute and RAND Corp. The latest Gallup survey found that, nationwide, the number of uninsured […]
Study: Hospitals Using Electronic Medical Records Not Bilking Medicare
In 2012, Medicare was rocked by allegations hospitals were systematically overcharging the government program by misusing electronic medical records. A study published Tuesday disputes that.
Colorado’s 2015 Premiums: Up, Down And Holding The Line
Health insurance companies in Colorado are starting to talk about their proposed premiums for 2015. State regulators on Monday released the draft prices, which the state now has 60 days to approve or deny. Carriers generally aren’t proposing big changes in premiums for 2015, nothing that’s dramatically out of line with trends of the last […]
Health Data Geeks Get Their Day
In the health information technology gold rush, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists are betting on new companies that help consumers, insurers and hospitals save money.
Too Early To Calculate Success Of ACA Marketplaces
Did taxpayers get a bargain or a boondoggle on the Obamacare exchanges? Economists agree it is still too soon to tell for most of the exchanges set up under the health law.
Some Colorado Doctors May Be Overcharging Medicare For Routine Visits
An analysis of newly available data may reveal fraud. But experts caution that the raw data alone could also make physicians who are doing nothing wrong look bad.
Colorado Redraws ACA Map To Cut Sky-High Ski Town Rates
Relief is in sight – and it won’t involve a lawsuit – for the four counties in Colorado that have the highest Obamacare health insurance premiums in the country. Local officials in the ski resort region in the mountains west of Denver had threatened to sue over the high rates. But on Friday Colorado Insurance Commissioner […]
Rural Hospitals Face Tough Choices On Computerized Records
Hospitals in remote places are making tradeoffs to adopt electronic medical records. Some are joining larger systems, sacrificing their independence. Others are going it alone, carefully.
Health Law Push Brings Thousands Into Colo. Medicaid Who Were Already Eligible
The big marketing push to get people enrolled in health coverage between October and March resulted in 3 million people signing up for Medicaid. Hundreds of thousands of those people were children who were already eligible and could have signed up even before the Affordable Care Act made coverage much more generous. They came “out of the woodwork” to […]
Doctors’ Billing System Stays Stuck In the ’70s For Now
Last week Congress delayed the upgrade of codes that govern the U.S. medical system. Some say this will waste billions of dollars and make cost-saving and life-saving research more difficult.
Co-op Health Insurance Plans See Early Success
Montana’s health insurance co-op is encouraged by its strong enrollment and plans to expand into Idaho next year. But some caution that it will be difficult for co-ops to grow beyond a niche player.
Local Control Key To Colorado Exchange’s (Moderate) Success
Being an early adopter can be rewarding. Remember how amazing it was to have the first iPhone? But then, sometimes early adopters pay a price, like that early version of the Apple map tool that led to some wrong turns. Colorado is one of 14 states going through their own version of this with the […]
Colorado’s Elusive Goal: A Complete, Useful Health Care Price List
Making health care prices available to the public is difficult and expensive, and Colorado and several other states are in jeopardy of losing funding for their efforts unless Congress intervenes.
It’s Hot Springs Vs. Ski Slopes In Colorado Insurance Battle
The county with the highest health insurance premiums in the country is drafting a lawsuit against Colorado, saying the state’s approval of the rates violates anti-discrimination protections in the Affordable Care Act. Garfield County Attorney Frank Hutfless says county commissioners told him “to prepare a lawsuit to be filed against the state, and particularly the department of […]
Rocky Mountain High Insurance Prices Rankle Ski Towns
Colorado Insurance Commissioner Margeurite Salazar has been getting an earful about high health insurance premiums in pockets of the state since prices she approved were unveiled Oct. 1. She is under increasing pressure to do something about them now that part of Colorado has been identified as having the most expensive premiums in the country. […]
A Third Generation Doctor Questions The Profession
Overwhelming bureaucracy and crushing student loan debt were not part of the package for Dr. Michael Sawyer’s father and grandfather. Still, he feels medicine is a calling.
Joining GOP Trend, U.S. Chamber Of Commerce Urges Fix, Not Repeal, Of Obamacare
The business lobbying group urges Republicans to shift their focus from repealing the health law to changing it in Congress. But some tea party Republicans want to continue the fight.
