Although there’s been lower utilization of prescription medications, Medicaid spending on prescription drugs has increased, a recent report shows. The KFF report relied on 2016 to 2022 State Drug Utilization Data, as well as CMS-64 Financial Management Reports from fiscal year 2017 to fiscal year 2022. It comes as states unwind the continuous enrollment provision, which prevented ...

Nearly 20% of U.S. hospitals have been warned that they violated the federal price transparency rules that went into effect in 2021, according to a Dec. 20 report from Bloomberg.  Government regulators evaluated 1,750 hospitals as of early December, and about 1,300 have received warnings of rule violations, according to the report. Most corrected errors after ...

California’s hospitals are getting busier with more COVID-19 and flu patients, some of whom are suffering from both viruses at the same time. The simultaneous sickness is another wrinkle in an already hectic respiratory virus season. Although hospitals are not nearly as crowded as during the emergency phase of the pandemic, they are becoming increasingly ...

If any year is looked back on as pivotal in California’s fight to curb mental illness, homelessness and drug-related deaths, 2023 could be the one. Gov. Gavin Newsom pushed major — and at times controversial — reforms of the state’s mental and behavioral health systems through the Legislature, but a mere two months after signing the laws, ...

Three major government agencies are adding new officials to investigate price-gouging in health care — positions experts say will help the three agencies better coordinate across the government.

The Biden administration said on Thursday it had identified 48 drugs in the Medicare program whose prices rose quicker than inflation during the fourth quarter of the year and may require their makers to pay rebates.