Content about Healthcare

Take Care Health Systems, which is owned by Walgreens, has formed a clinical collaboration with Community Health Network to improve access to care for patients throughout central Indiana.

A new health initiative will address cardiovascular disease among African-Americans living in three counties in Alabama where the problem is considered significant.

Regional player Thrifty White Pharmacy, which operates 90 pharmacies in the upper Midwest, is working to enroll patients in its Medication Synchronization Program as a recent study conducted by Virginia Commonwealth University found that those patients taking their medications correctly with the program are more likely to stay well, make fewer clinic visits and require fewer hospitalizations, thus reducing overall healthcare spending.

Plaintiffs in CMA et al. v. Douglas et al. have filed a request for a rehearing of the case on the heels of a reversal of the Federal District Court’s decision by a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Shifting patients away from hospital emergency rooms and into retail-based and urgent care walk-in clinics can significantly lower healthcare costs, improve access to care and reduce the impact of such chronic diseases as diabetes and hyperlipidemia, two health benefits experts asserted in a recent online presentation.

SCIO Health Analytics and Walgreens have teamed up to help employers gain maximum return on investment through worksite health centers. Through the partnership, SCIO will provide actionable data and reporting to demonstrate the value and impact of worksite health centers, while giving Walgreens’ clients areas of opportunity to further improve employee health and reduce costs.

More and more employers get it, and there is growing belief that as the clock ticks down to 2014 and full implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, even more employers will get it. In the meantime, projects like this that help provide outcome reporting will help make the ROI picture even clearer for big employers who still might be on the fence.

Seniors have serious concerns regarding mandatory mail-order pharmacy requirements in prescription drug plans, according to a new national survey of 669 Medicare Part D beneficiaries released Thursday by the National Community Pharmacists Association.

Opponents of health reform are usually quick to make comparisons between our nation’s healthcare system and that of the rest of the world. Americans, they argue, enjoy the most advanced and most effective health care in the world. And forcing the U.S. system to change – either through new, evidence-based government payment incentives, federally mandated quality and cost controls, or through new methods for delivering primary care or making health decisions on behalf of patients – would only jeopardize the patient-doctor relationship and undermine the best healthcare network in the world.

Those opponents of change are wrong, in part because they’re willing to accept the status quo for U.S. health care, which is unsustainable for the simple reason that the nation can’t afford the current fee-for-service health system and its skyrocketing costs. But they’re also wrong because they’re proceeding from a flawed assumption: that our health system is tops among all nations.

While replacing a single combination pill for HIV with generics would save the healthcare system money, it could also diminish the effectiveness of treatment, a new study suggests.

The Department of Health and Human Services is proposing a new rule that it said would promote consistent policies and processes for eligibility notices in Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program and the health insurance exchanges mandated under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Walgreens' Arkansas Payment Improvement Initiative aims to create a more patient-centered and cost-efficient payment system for the retailer's home state.

The latest move by Walmart is as sure an indication as any that health care is becoming less about fee-for-service and more about basing compensation on ratings derived from patient outcomes.