Medicaid Health Plans Face Quality And Performance Ratings

Just as millions of Americans enroll in the expanded Medicaid health insurance program under the Affordable Care Act, the Obama administration is rolling out new rules that will measure quality and performance of private plans that provide such benefits. Already, the federal government rates private health plans that contract with the […]
SOURCE: Forbes – Health – Read entire story here.

FDA Okays Two Drugs for Irritable Bowel Syndrome (MedPage Today) -- Both treat IBS accompanied by diarrhea...
An Early Look At SHOP Marketplaces: Low Premiums, Adequate Plan Choice In Many, But Not All, States [Exchange Coverage] The Affordable Care Act created the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) Marketplaces to help small businesses provide health insurance to their employees. To attract the participation of substantial numbers of small employers, SHOP Marketplaces must demonstrate value-added features unavailable in the traditional small-group market. Such features could include lower premiums than those for plans offered outside the Marketplace and more extensive choices of carriers and plans. More choices are necessary for SHOP Marketplaces to offer the "employee choice model," in which employees may choose from many carriers and plans. This study compared the numbers of carriers and plans and...
How To Avoid Being Fooled By The Latest Shocking Diet Study Every day we are bombarded by information about diets. Most of that information has some kind of an agenda lurking behind it. It may be purely commercial – ads pushing a particular diet, a book, a weight-loss product, a food item. That’s hard enough to sort through. But agendas lurk ...
Dental Health Article by Dr Emma – "Crowns and Bridges and Veneers – Oh My" Crowns, bridges, veneers - do you know the difference? With so much dental jargon around it's easy to get confused as to how each of these dental treatments differ? In her latest article for HIF, Dr Emma explains the reasons why we need these treatment plans and explains the differences between each of them....
Most Routine Laboratory Testing Of Pediatric Psychiatric Patients In The Emergency Department Is Not Medically Necessary [Value & Quality] We examined the patient characteristics and hospital charges associated with routine medical clearance laboratory screening tests in 1,082 children younger than age eighteen who were brought to the emergency department (ED) for involuntary mental health holds—that is, each patient was brought to the ED to be evaluated for being a danger to him- or herself or to others, for being gravely disabled (unable to meet his or her basic needs due to a mental disorder), or both—from July 2009 to December 2010. Testing was performed on 871 of the children; all patients also received a clinical examination. The median charge...