Search results for

Medicare spends about $20 billion each year on implanted medical devices. Nearly half of the total goes for orthopedic surgery. Yet doctors who were surveyed about implant prices could only accurately estimate the prices about one-fifth of the time.

Some 5,000 uninsured people go into O'Connor Hospital's emergency department each year. A staffer tasked with helping them find coverage says 70 percent of the people she sees could now get it — if they follow through and apply.

Supplemental insurance plans shield millions of people from Medicare's deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs. Some health economists have criticized these so-called Medigap plans for inflating health care spending by encouraging people to seek care they don't really need.

If you buy insurance through a marketplace and you lose your job, it will pay to let the marketplace know. The reduction in income while you're unemployed could make you eligible for a bigger tax credit to help pay for coverage.

About 75,000 patients a year die from infections they caught in the hospital. A Kaiser Health News analysis finds that nearly 700 hospitals across the nation have higher than expected infection rates.

Voters will decide on a penny-per-ounce tax on sugary drinks in Berkeley and a 2-cent-per-ounce tax in San Francisco. But the soda industry's lobbying group has spent millions blasting the measures.

Nobody looks forward to sitting in the waiting room. So some hospitals are trying to improve customer satisfaction by offering online appointments. The pitch: "Wait for the ER from home."

A proton beam therapy center in Indiana is closing, and insurers are reluctant to cover the treatment for common cancers. But plans for three new proton therapy centers for the D.C. area are still on.

While there were increases in the second quarter of this year, they don't appear to be pushing the growth in health spending toward the painful levels of a decade ago.

Physicians have been warning for years about a coming shortage of primary care doctors. But others say primary care teams that include other types of health workers might fill the gap better.