Patient Finds Shopping for Low-Priced CT Scan Doesn’t Pay Off

Douglas White knew high-deductible insurance is supposed to make patients feel the pain of medical prices and turn them into smart shoppers. So he shopped. He called around for price quotes on the CT scan his doctor ordered. After all, his plan’s $2,000 deductible meant paying the full cost out of pocket. Using information from ...

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Obamacare’s Big Overhead Costs to Top $270B

That sure is a lot of paper clips. Obamacare is set to add more than a quarter-of-a-trillion—that’s trillion—dollars in extra insurance administrative costs to the U.S. health-care system, according to a new report out Wednesday. (Tweet this) The $273.6 billion in additional insurance overhead represents an average of of $1,375 per newly insured person, per ...

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Federal Investigators Fault Medicare’s Reliance on Doctors for Pay Standards

WASHINGTON — The government relies too heavily on advice from the American Medical Association in deciding how much to pay doctors under Medicare, and the decisions may be biased because the doctors have potential conflicts of interest, federal investigators say in a new report. This reliance on the association, combined with flaws in data collected by the ...

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Midsize Businesses Seek Relief From Federal Health Law

Employer groups and insurers are pushing to keep businesses with 51 to 100 workers exempt from a provision of the federal health law that they say could significantly increase their costs. For these midsize employers, the Affordable Care Act’s requirements for what health plans must cover—and how they are priced—are set to take effect on ...

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CMS’ Proposed Medicaid Managed Care Rule Poses Hurdle for States

Experts are warning that state Medicaid agencies struggling with budget issues could have a difficult time managing the Obama administration’s newly proposed Medicaid managed care rule,Modern Healthcare reports (Dickson, Modern Healthcare, 5/27). Background CMS on Tuesday released the proposed rule, which aims to create more standardized practices across states and align managed care standards with ...

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Medicare Releases 2013 Hospital, Doctor Payment Data

On Monday, CMS publicly released new online data that reveal hospitals’ Medicare charges and payments, as well as what doctors billed, in 2013, Modern Healthcare reports (Herman, Modern Healthcare, 6/1). Background The data were unveiled at the Health Datapalooza conference in Washington, D.C. (CMS release, 6/1). It is the third straight year that Medicare has ...

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