Are nonprofit hospitals contributing their fair share of financial assistance?
A recent study looks at patterns of charity care spending at public, private, and for-profit hospitals, and finds some interesting results... More
Early results from federal price transparency rule show difficultly in estimating the cost of care
As of January 1, under federal rules issued by the Trump Administration, hospitals are required to publish the price of health services by payer. More
When Births Go Horribly Wrong, Florida Protects Doctors and Forces Families to Pay the Price
A Florida program designed to reduce doctors’ malpractice bills strips families of their right to sue, offering instead a one-time payment and promises to cover medical expenses. Some parents report a bureaucratic nightmare that’s anything but supportive. More
Drug companies keep merging. Why that’s bad for consumers and innovation.
Over 30 years, dramatic consolidation has meant higher prices, fewer treatment options and less incentive to innovate. More
Despite Covid, Many Wealthy Hospitals Had a Banner Year With Federal Bailout
Some of the nation’s richest hospitals and health systems recorded hundreds of millions of dollars in surpluses after accepting the lion’s share of the federal health care bailout grants, their records show. Those included the Mayo Clinic, Pittsburgh’s UPMC and NYU Langone Health. But poorer hospitals — many serving rural and minority populations — got a tinier slice of the pie and limped through the year with deficits, downgrades of their bond ratings and bleak fiscal futures. More
Opinion: The health-care industry doesn’t want to talk about this single word
I will no longer censor myself. More
Boston’s hospital chiefs moonlight on corporate boards at rates far beyond the national level
Hospital chiefs and trustees defend this as boosting public-private partnerships, but critics say these board positions — some paying millions of dollars — raise troubling issues of conflict of interest and hospital priorities. More
United States spent $162 million on remdesivir development but holds no patents, review finds
Members of Congress asked for a GAO review of taxpayer spending that went toward to Gilead's coronavirus drug. More
Medical Device Firm Payments To Physicians Exceed What Drug Companies Pay Physicians, Target Surgical Specialists
Many physicians receive payments from medical device companies that make products physicians can use or recommend. More
‘It Felt Like Deception’: An Elite NYC Hospital Charges Huge Virus Test Fees
Insurers are stuck with the big bills from Lenox Hill, but the public ultimately pays through higher premiums. More
COVID-19 curbed health systems’ charity-care spending in 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic kept many patients out of hospitals last year. That meant fewer people qualified for free or discounted care compared with 2019. More
Her Doctor’s Office Moved 1 Floor Up. Why Did Her Treatment Cost 10 Times More?
Same building. Same procedure. Same doctor. But there was an extra "facility fee" because the location changed slightly. A shot that used to cost her about $30 went up to more than $300. More
Does higher hospital CEO compensation mean better quality?
There's nothing wrong with paying a hospital leader for doing a good job, especially in a crisis. But when compensation goes into the millions we have to ask, are we getting what we pay for? More
Taxpayers Fund Research and Drug Companies Make a Fortune
The pharmaceutical industry doesn’t want things to change, but Americans can have both lower prices and innovation. More
Universities launch opioid litigation archive to ‘ensure history doesn’t repeat itself’
The goal of the Opioid Industry Documents Archive is to provide transparency into the strategies companies used to increase sales. More
‘It was nuts. It was exhilarating’: How a punishing year transformed Mayo Clinic
This echoes a national trend healthcare institutions have seen this year, said Dr. Vikas Saini, president of the Lown Institute, a nonpartisan healthcare-focused think tank. “When you get this type of a massive crisis, quite often, the old kind of leadership models and chains of command have to get disrupted. Because if you have to move quickly, there's a lot of native intelligence in the rank and file or on the front lines,” Saini said. “Crises like this kind of allow some of that knowledge, which is practical knowledge, to be made available.”
Biden’s choice and FDA’s loosening standards of evidence
The US Food and Drug Administration is widely considered the world’s premier regulator of drugs and devices, but critics say three decades of deregulation have resulted in increasingly lax oversight and lower standards of evidence, writes Jeanne Lenzer More
‘The public is being denied the truth’: A legal expert blasts Purdue’s bankruptcy plan to end opioid lawsuits
The process "appears to be a system designed to protect the creditors, but it’s not," said legal expert and advocate Charlotte Bismuth. More
Low Compliance From Big Hospitals On CMS’s Hospital Price Transparency Rule
The success of this initiative will rely heavily on hospital compliance. In this blog post, we assess early hospital compliance and discuss the implication of our results for the future of health care pricing transparency. More
The Drugs at the Heart of Our Pricing Crisis
Biologic drugs rack up billions in annual U.S. sales. Here’s a solution to lower the costs. More