The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has held its ground on prostate cancer screening. They are against screening, for men of any age. And yes, the howls of outrage are echoing through the hospital and clinic halls, notably from the American Urological Association. Now I wonder why the AUA is “outraged?”Ah. I have a thought. [...]

We’ve seen it in retail. You can shop for your clothes, buy groceries and take your little one for a photo shoot at Super Target.We’ve seen it in tech: You can take photos and video, work on documents, send email and play music all on the same mobile device.And the beginnings of convergence is happening [...]

Pharmaceutical companies and insurers are still figuring out how they’ll work with each other, but a clear majority of both camps surveyed in Quintiles‘ annual New Health Report expect that there will be more collaborations in the future.The survey included more than 1,350 healthcare stakeholders ranging from healthcare payers, executives, patients and investors in the [...]

A new partnership with a company that bills itself as having the most broad-reaching healthcare communication network in the country could increase health IT startup CoverMyMeds‘ health insurance customer base.Cleveland-area CoverMyMeds (CMM) has developed Web-based tools that speed up and automate the submission of prior authorization requests to health insurance plans. Insurers sometimes require these [...]

There is no question that the President wants a “single payer,” where hospitals and physicians are all paid from a single source, a single government-run program funded by general taxation. The fact that this leads to shortages, waiting lines, and rationing does not seem to concern those who have this single-minded goal.Before he became President, [...]

Big data’s surging tide of information on medicines, patients and outcomes is changing how pharmaceutical companies develop new drugs. Consider AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN).The data on whether a drug will work in certain patients makes that drug more valuable, said AstraZeneca’s Dr. Steve Labkoff, head of strategic programs, research and development informations. Insurance companies don’t want to [...]

The country is halfway to full implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. While the misconceptions and misinformation have been flying for the two years since the bill was signed into law, they haven’t stopped some of its strongest provisions from padding bottom lines for many Ohio small business owners. So what exactly [...]

Read about a source of confusion regarding health insurance exchanges: What’s the difference between an exchange set up by a state vs. one from the federal government?

A Minneapolis company has created an iPhone app that will allow people to interact with their health insurance companies about everything from claims and coverage to disease management.Warm Health, an healthcare communications and disease management company, announced Monday that the Warm Health App on iTunes is available to plan members of its insurance clients. Although [...]

A pilot project from the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation will funnel extra cash to primary care practices from both the federal government and private insurers.The federal government has selected seven regions across the nation to participate in the pilot program, including the Cincinnati and Dayton area in Southern Ohio. Officials with Cincinnati’s The [...]