The healthcare industry is not making the amount of progress that is needed for a smooth transition to ICD-10 in October 2014, according to a letter submitted by the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange, an HHS advisor, to the Secretary of HHS.  

As more people demand healthcare price transparency, in light of a recent TIME exposé on high medical charges, a Duke University physician has argued price transparency could "backfire" and cause healthcare costs to rise, according to an article in The Atlantic.

President Barack Obama's $3.77 trillion budget plan for the 2014 fiscal year, if approved, would raise overall federal spending about 6 percent above the current sequester rates, but it would cut Medicare's budget by an estimated $370 billion through reduced payments to pharmaceutical companies and requiring wealthier seniors to pay higher premiums for Medicare Parts B and D, according to a report by Politico.

Doubling back on its push to cut Medicare Advantage payments, CMS announced it would instead increase its rates to Medicare Advantage plans by 3.3 percent next year rather than the 2.3 percent slash it had originally planned.

Beginning Jan. 1, 2014, HHS will pay 100 percent of states' cost to insure certain newly eligible adult Medicaid beneficiaries in states that expand the program, according to a final rule issued by the department.

An angiogram claim on Canada's public health plan costs $35. In the United States, a study of hundreds of health plans revealed the same procedure costs, on average, $914, with a range from $173 in the lowest quartile and $2,430 in the 95th percentile.

A study by the Institute of Medicine examining geographic differences in Medicare spending found the variations may be due to waste or unnecessary procedures, but cautioned policy makers against cutting rates to high-cost regions.

Healthcare prices have been an enigma within the U.S. healthcare system for many years now, and a report from the Catalyst for Payment Reform and the Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute quantifies how a majority of states fail to enact comprehensive healthcare price transparency laws.

Here are five coding and documentation tips for spine surgeons to optimize reimbursements.

CMS has once again revised penalties for hospitals under its Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program, which cuts hospitals' Medicare payments up to 1 percent for higher-than-expected 30-day readmission rates for heart attack, heart failure and pneumonia patients, according to a Kaiser Health News report.