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Until CMS publishes...regulations, all providers and developers can do is hold tight – but the clock keeps ticking...in a real bind....anxiously waiting for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to release final rule changes to meaningful use regulations...all hospitals and eligible providers would be able to attest to 90 consecutive days of meaningful use for 2015 only, instead of an entire year.

Empowering consumers to manage their own health is critical...The healthcare industry is more consumer-centered than ever, and hospital and health system leaders must strategize accordingly,...transition to value-based healthcare is one of the industry's top priorities,... providers must engage consumers to empower them to manage their own health..

investigators said…that thousands of doctors and other health care providers had signed up to bill Medicare using "questionable addresses" like mailbox rental stores, vacant lots and a fast-food restaurant… use of invalid addresses is "an indicator of potential fraud,"… Medicare officials said they had revoked billing privileges for almost 28,000 providers and suppliers in the last few years.

International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists has raised serious concerns about patient access to vital medications..."FDA’s draft guidance overreaches far beyond the intentions of Congress and contradicts the clear language of the DQSA and previous federal legislation....it will hinder patient access to compounded medications, limit patient choice of their pharmacist, and disrupt the essential physician-patient-pharmacist triad relationship,"

CMS has said it will not deny or audit claims just for specificity for one year after implementation of ICD-10—as long as the code is from the appropriate family of ICD-10 codes. But it has not defined what a family of codes is… To get AMA to cease and desist its defiance, CMS gave AMA something it wanted: no penalties for some coding errors...

Only a handful have finalized premiums for the coming year...Some analysts who have looked at health insurers' proposed premiums for next year predict major increases for policies sold on state and federal health exchanges. Others say it's too soon to tell. One thing is clear: There's a battle brewing behind the scenes to keep plans affordable for consumers.

Angarita’s life has been consumed with searching for vitamins, calcium, diapers and medicines.. widespread shortages… Currency controls and flailing local production have fueled worsening scarcities… selling price-controlled goods…on the local black market, leaving less on shelves… shortages in the health sector.. hospitals are…forced to turn away patients due to lack of everything...About 7 in 10 drugs are currently unavailable…

FDA warning letter, ....was issued to SCA Pharmaceuticals....deficiencies in the company’s production of sterile drug products, including failure to adequately perform investigations of sterility failures and batches of product that contained particulates...

Federal and state costs associated with…Medicaid expansion are proving higher than previously estimated,...".. average benefit costs of newly eligible adult enrollees are expected to have been substantially greater than those for non-newly eligible adult enrollees.," typically reflects deferred utilization—people who can't afford healthcare can now access care and use it,"

As part of a push to bring more novel excipients to market,International Pharmaceutical Excipient Council of the Americas is calling on the FDA to create a new regulatory review process that could relieve some of the uncertainty..of new excipients....new review process could be a boon for relieve some of the uncertainty..