Paige Minemyer

The Department of Health and Human Services has named a new adviser to oversee its drug pricing initiatives. 

HHS has finalized plans to roll out the long-awaited final rule for the 340B drug discount program, which would set price ceilings and monetary penalties, at the beginning of next year.

Though the results of midterms generally bring a level of certainty to the realm of healthcare policy over the next couple of years, there is room for bipartisan work in this space ahead of the 2020 presidential race, experts say.

Fewer patients with employer-sponsored insurance are visiting their primary care doctors, but more are seeing other advanced practice providers, according to a new study. 

Partners HealthCare and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care have tabled their merger discussions—for now, at least. Michael Carson, CEO of Harvard Pilgrim, said that the two will continue to explore “opportunities for collaboration.” 

Better collaboration between insurers and healthcare providers could help accelerate the use of evidence-based care, according to a new report from the Alliance of Community Health Plans.

The Trump administration’s plan to peg Part B drug prices to those paid in other countries may not come to fruition in its current form, but it’s meant more to signal to the healthcare industry—and voters—that it’s serious on this issue, experts say. …

The “dysfunctional” U.S. health system may be working to improve hospital and payer bottom lines, but it’s not working as intended for patients or the doctors that care for them, the head of the American Medical Association said.

The midterm elections’ major implication for the healthcare industry? Some much-needed predictability. 

A federal judge has agreed to set a deadline for HHS to clear out its Medicare claims appeal backlog. The American Hospital Association has been pushing the agency to more quickly eliminate the backlog for more than four years in the courts.