Author's posts
OIG: Hospitals are upcoding severity levels for Medicare patients
Inpatient hospital stays have become more expensive to the Medicare program, and it’s a trend that began even before the COVID-19 pandemic. A new report from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Inspector General uncovered a possi…
Cigna’s Evernorth subsidiary purchasing MDLive in bid to expand telehealth services
Telehealth has come of age during the COVID-19 pandemic, and major insurer Cigna is betting on it continuing, with its healthcare services subsidiary Evernorth poised to purchase telehealth provider MDLive.
Financial terms were not disclosed, but the d…
Biden Administration secures supply of new COVID-19 therapeutic treatment
As of Friday, the Biden Administration has secured a supply of a recently authorized COVID-19 therapeutic treatment, with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense collaborating to purchase 100,000 courses of a seco…
Human rights law can provide a fair, transparent framework for vaccine allocations
As governments around the world wrestle with the question of designing a fair system to allocate their COVID-19 vaccine supplies for maximum protection against the pandemic, a team of researchers, led by Dr. Sharifah Sekalala of Warwick Law School, pro…
Advancements in automation are cutting into the rising costs of manual healthcare transactions
Inefficiency is an issue that continues to plague many areas of healthcare, particularly when it comes to manual administrative functions. While the industry is increasingly harnessing technology — evidenced by the use of telehealth and the push for e…
Disadvantaged census areas are linked to COVID-19 incidence
An LSU Health New Orleans School of Public Health report has found a positive association between social vulnerability and COVID-19 incidence at the census tract level, and recommends that more resources be allocated to socially vulnerable populations …
FDA deems Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine safe and effective
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has deemed Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine safe and effective in an analysis released Wednesday morning that paves the way for the drugmaker’s request for emergency use authorization.
CVS Health to expand vaccine efforts in Florida
CVS Health has announced that it will begin to administer COVID-19 vaccines to eligible populations at 81 of its pharmacies across Florida in an ongoing effort to expand access to the vaccines, which public health experts say are vital in ending the on…
Supreme Court will hear challenge to Trump Administration’s ‘public charge’ rule
On Monday the Supreme Court announced it would take up a case challenging a Trump-era rule that makes it more difficult for immigrants to achieve legal status if they use public benefits such as Medicaid or food stamps. The case was brought by state an…
U.S. hospitals and health systems face a long road to recovery
The first month of the new year proved challenging for hospitals and health systems nationwide as the effects of the pandemic continued to push margins, volumes and outpatient revenues below the performance of the prior year, according to the February …
