By aggressively documenting a patient’s conditions, insurers can inflate the amount of money they get from Medicare Advantage patients. Here's what reporters should understand about the hidden practice of "upcoding."
Healthcare Regulation and Reform
“One important thing is to find your advocate,” veteran reporter John Gonzales told fellow journalists this week. “You got to find someone who is going to be there for you when you’re having trouble with access.”
The two largest health care providers in southern Santa Barbara County have announced plans to merge. How would such a move impact the cost, quality and access to care for the region's residents? Hospital mergers elsewhere have resulted in prices — but not necessarily quality — going up.
On health care, the talk from presidential candidates has been way too sketchy and uninformative, argues contributing editor Trudy Lieberman. Policy details remain vague, and no one has gotten to the heart of what ails the system.
A new Health Matters webinar this week explored just how different the health care spending map looks when researchers are given access to price and spending data from private insurance plans.
With the third open enrollment period closing last Sunday and predictions suggesting fewer sign-ups than expected, it’s time to be clear about why it’s so difficult to get the remaining holdouts insured.
Are insurance policies too complicated to understand? They always have been and always will be unless there are changes in the way policies work, or until there are rules to make it easier for buyers to compare options.
The Food and Drug Administration will review a long-delayed petition calling for the voluntary addition of folic acid to corn masa to prevent neural-tube defects such as those seen in Washington’s cluster.
A complaint filed this week alleges that California is engaging in unlawful discrimination by paying some of the lowest reimbursement rates in the country to the state’s Medicaid providers. As some coverage pointed out, the notion that low rates are limiting access to doctors is “not unfounded."
Cohen recently gave California fellows a master class in how to approach public records. In her talk, Cohen stressed the level of pre-reporting that needs to be done before filing a request. Here are a few key takeaways.