WellCare to Pay $35.2 Million Amid Medicaid Probe
WellCare Health Plans Inc said on Monday it agreed to pay $35.2 million to the U.S. Attorney related to a government probe into accounting errors in its Florida Medicaid behavioral health contracts.
UK Drugs Watchdog Chief Attacks Drug Firm on Prices
Incentive schemes linking drug industry executives' pay to their firms' share price and profits help drive up the price of new drugs, the head of Britain's health cost-effectiveness watchdog was quoted as saying.
Medical Errors in US Surgical Patients Cost Nearly $1.5 Billion Annually: Report
An analysis by the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) indicates that employers pay out $1.47 billion each year to cover the costs incurred from potentially preventable adverse medical events in surgical patients.
Increasing Global Surgery Volume Mandates Improved Safety, Availability
Surgery now occurs at a tremendous volume worldwide, resulting in a great need for public health efforts to improve the safety and availability of surgical services, according to the results of a study reported in The Lancet, published online June 25.
HHS and DHS Announce Guidance on Pandemic Vaccination Allocation
The U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Homeland Security (DHS) released today guidance on allocating and targeting pandemic influenza vaccine. The guidance provides a planning framework to help state, tribal, local and community leaders ensure that vaccine allocation and use will reduce the impact of a pandemic on public health and minimize […]
Multidisciplinary Collaboration Needed to Incorporate Genomics Into Clinical Care
Multidisciplinary collaboration is needed to incorporate genomics into clinical care, according to scientists who have launched a new initiative to investigate potential uses of genetic testing in primary care. Their commentary on the topic, published in the July 29 issue of Nature Genetics, addresses the gap between research on gene–disease associations and the use of […]
UK Agency Urges Doctors to Cut Antibiotics
British doctors should slash the number of times they prescribe antibiotics for respiratory tract infections because the drugs rarely help, the country's drug cost watchdog said on Wednesday.
U.S. Flu Pandemic Vaccination Plan Puts Health Care Workers First
Essential health care workers would be immunized first if a flu pandemic broke out in the United States, the government said on Wednesday.
WellPoint Profit Beats Estimates, Shares Rise
Health insurer WellPoint Inc said on Wednesday profit fell 10 percent, as medical costs ate further into premiums, but its shares rose more than 6 percent as results beat projections, helped by strength in its pharmacy and behavioral health businesses. Although the largest U.S. health insurer by membership tempered its full-year profit and enrollment forecasts, […]
1 in 7 Americans Lack Health Insurance
One in seven Americans — one in six Americans under age 65 — do not have any kind of health insurance, the CDC reports. Lack of health insurance is greatest in the Southwest and lowest in the Northeast, with huge variation — by about 20% — among the states. "Overall, 43.1 million Americans lacked health […]
