A divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that some "pay-for-delay" settlements between drug companies and their competitors violate antitrust laws. The 5-3 decision, a limited victory for the Obama administration, paves the way for federal regulators to challenge such deals in court. Pay-for-delay settlements typically occur when a company develops and patents a new drug to be released into the marketplace. Competitors that wish to introduce a generic version often challenge the patent. Rather than fight the challenge, patent-holding drugmakers have found it more lucrative to simply pay the competitor to keep generics off the market. The two firms then share monopoly profits that are, in some cases, much higher than open competition would yield, critics charge.
NATIONAL HARBOR, MD – Farzad Mostashari, MD, the national coordinator for healthcare IT, asserted today there would be no extension of the deadline for switching from the ICD-9 medical coding system to ICD-10. The deadline for conversion would remain Oct. 1, 2014, Mostashari said in a keynote delivered this morning at the HIMSS Media ICD-10 Forum in National Harbor, Md. "There are no plans for any more extensions," he told attendees, repeating it twice, for emphasis. The current extension, from Oct. 1, 2013 to Oct. 1, 2014 was partly due to looking at the incremental changes needed in reforming healthcare, and realizing that "sometimes, extensions are needed," Mostashari said.
The average patient can't fathom why the sharing of electronic medical records is so hard. But those inside healthcare aren't thrilled either with the state of electronic record interoperability, as several smart discussions at this week's Digital Healthcare Conference in Madison, Wis., showed. "If we're this far into this implementation across the country, and we still have this level of discordance, shame on us," said Dr. Frank Byrne, president of Wisconsin's St. Mary's Hospital. "How did we get here and how do we get out? Because we've created barriers
Epic CEO and founder Judy Faulkner highlighted some of the obstacles to data sharing, from patients wanting to control such sharing, to difficulty training clinicians, to the many technical challenges.
(Reuters) - Arizona's Republican Governor Jan Brewer signed a law on Monday to expand Medicaid, embracing a key part of Democratic President Barack Obama's healthcare plan in a hard-won policy victory over conservatives in her own party. Brewer, a feisty opponent of the Obama administration over immigration enforcement, signed a bill that will make about 300,000 additional poor and disabled residents eligible for the Medicaid program, a move opposed by some conservative Republican lawmakers. With the signing, Arizona became the 24th state to move ahead with the expansion, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a California-based nonprofit that tracks the issue.
About half of Americans say they don't know how the Affordable Care Act will affect them. Four in 10 think it has been repealed or overturned, or they are unsure where it stands. So chances are good that when the major provisions kick in next year, including online health insurance marketplaces and new standards for health plan costs and coverage, people are going to have questions. Lots of questions. When they do, the biggest one of all may be where to turn for answers. There may not be a simple solution. Depending on where people live and the type of coverage they have, the assistance that's available and where to find it may vary considerably.
WakeMed Health & Hospitals and one of the state's biggest physicians practices announced a partnership Monday designed to minimize federal penalties and maximize financial rewards under the national health care law. Under the arrangement, WakeMed and Key Physicians will stay in regular contact with Medicare patients after they are sent home from the hospital, an approach long viewed as impractical because of the costs involved. Health assistants will call patients to make sure they take their medications and schedule follow-up doctor appointments to manage their health and limit the need for emergency care