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Healthcare IT security: you have a bad reputation. When it gets down to healthcare there’s always a little chuckle about how bad they are…This year was among the worst in cybersecurity across the healthcare sector…On average, companies that got breached did not know it for 270 days and some had even been breached for seven years without knowing it…that two-thirds of those entities did not even discover the breach internally; it was pointed out to them, either by someone outside the organization or by the federal government...As bad as breaches are, however, there are other worse threats emerging that hospital CIOs, CISOs and IT departments should understand and prepare for.

1. Ransomware
2. DDoS (Distributed Denial of Services)
3. Wiper attacks
4. Intellectual property theft
5. Straight theft of money
6. Data manipulation
7. Data destruction

Spending on Medicaid rose nearly 14 percent on average in the last fiscal year, a report has found, largely because of a tide of newly eligible enrollees in the 29 states that had expanded the program by then to cover millions more low-income adults….But for most of those states, the per-member, per-month cost of the new enrollees was not higher — in a few cases, in fact, it was lower — than expected…almost all of the additional spending was covered by federal funds, which are paying the entire cost of expanding Medicaid through 2016 and at least 90 percent thereafter… states should be worried less about their eventual 10 percent share of the cost of expanding Medicaid than whether the federal government can pay 90 percent of it indefinitely…"We are talking tens of billions of dollars a year here,"…"If I was a state official, I would not count on that money hanging around."

federal government could save anywhere between $15.2 billion and $16 billion annually if it negotiated Medicare Part D prescription prices with drug makers, … the high levels of deductibles and out-of-pocket copayments are the main reason why so many Americans cannot afford to fill their prescriptions…federal government cannot directly negotiate rebates due to the non-interference clause,…but insurers can.

A group of San Diego, California, pharmacies and their owners have paid $750,000 to the federal government to resolve drug diversion claims…pharmacies had been accused of mishandling prescription narcotics and ephedrine/pseudoephedrine products…The settlement was with Park Medical Pharmacy Inc…and owners Joseph Grasela and John Grasela…Drug Enforcement Administration alleged that the pharmacies had violated the Controlled Substances Act by diverting a “significant” amount of controlled substances, not taking adequate inventory of controlled substances, and not maintaining records of the pharmacies’ distribution of products.

..Kentucky pharmacy has agreed to pay $9.25 million to settle allegations that it solicited and received kickbacks from a manufacturer in exchange for promoting a drug with nursing home patients,… PharMerica Corp. resolves claims that it received kickbacks from Abbott Laboratories in exchange for recommending that physicians prescribe the Abbott-manufactured drug Depakote. The federal government alleged the kickbacks were disguised as rebates, educational grants and other financial support....

PATIENTS and taxpayers are set to save some cash as the federal government announces it'll no longer subsidise basic over-the-counter medicines like paracetamol and aspirin...17 common drugs that treat issues like headaches, heartburn and constipation will be removed from the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme from January 1, 2016…The move is expected to save taxpayers half a billion dollars over the next five years, which…says will instead be spent on listing new life-saving drugs…The Consumers Health Forum is concerned consumers will now be buying and taking medicines without a treatment plan and regular monitoring from their doctor... the move will have no impact on a patient's ability to speak to their doctor or pharmacist about over-the-counter medicines… Australian Medical Association…said doctors welcomed the announcement, which was based on advice from the independent Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee.

An Obamacare program that aims to improve…health care may have an unintended side effect: penalizing hospitals that serve the sickest and poorest patients….penalizes hospitals that have high readmission rates, where patients come back within 30 days. The aim of that program was to encourage doctors to do the best job possible on the first hospital visit, improving patients' experience and saving money by preventing a second trip. Hospitals that have high readmission rates tend to see patients who are less educated, more disabled, and more likely to suffer from depression — factors the Obamacare program doesn't account for.