Data Dive
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- Insurance
Open for business: Insurers prepare for new consumer market
A recent report, Open for business: Insurers prepare for new consumer market (PDF), from Price Waterhouse Coopers thoroughly explains the…
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- Medical Studies
Opioids
In the not-too-distant past, vehicle crashes were the leading cause of injury deaths in the U.S. Then gun violence began…
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- Aging
Opioids
The Medicare Part D Opioid Prescribing Mapping Tool, updated in November 2017, is an interactive tool that shows geographic comparisons, at…
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- Health Policy
Out-of-Pocket Costs of Diagnostic Breast Imaging Services After Screening Mammography Among Commercially Insured Women From 2010 to 2017
The ACA largely eliminated out of pocket costs (OOPCs) for screening mammography, but researchers found that among commercially insured women…
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- Insurance
Overview: Medicare Drug Spending
In this 10-page report, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, which advises Congress on Medicare spending, outlines how the Medicare program…
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- Health Policy
Patterns of Use of a Price Transparency Tool for Childbirth Among Pregnant Individuals With Commercial Insurance
For a study published in JAMA Network Open in August 2021, researchers collected information on 253,606 pregnant people, of whom…
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- Insurance
Payment Reform Scorecard
Health insurers recognize that the fee-for-service (FFS) payment system is deeply flawed. FFS drives up spending because it provides an…
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- Infectious Diseases
Plasmodium parasite
Nearly half of the world’s population remains at risk for malaria with 216 million reported cases in 2016 and over…
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- Insurance
Poor Health Costs US Employers $530 Billion and 1.4 Billion Work Days of Absence and Impaired Performance
Researchers from the Integrated Benefits Institute reported that employers in the United States pay about $880 billion in health care…
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- Health Policy
POS (Provider of Service)
This POS (Provider of Service) file contains data on health care providers that take part in Medicare, and what services they provide. …
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- Health Policy
Potential Roe v. Wade decision highlights wide variation in regulations regarding health coverage of abortion
A report from healthinsurance.org shows that the Affordable Care Act did not mandate or ban health insurance coverage for abortion.…
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- Aging
Prescribing patterns
Medicare Provider Utilization and Payment Data: 2015 Part D Prescriber: The Part D Prescriber Public Use File has information on…
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- Insurance
Preventable, Potentially Fatal Patient Identification Errors Analyzed by ECRI Patient Safety Organization
In a recent analysis of patient safety errors, ECRI reported that about 9 percent of such events led to temporary…
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- Health Policy
Private Health Coverage: Results of Covert Testing for Selected Sales Representatives Listed on Healthcare.gov
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported in August 2021 that sales representatives listed on the federal healthcare.gov website can sell…
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- Insurance
Private Health Insurance: The Range of Base Premiums for Individuals Age 19 and 64 in the Individual Market by State in January 2013
In a report released Feb. 4, 2014, the Government Accountability Office issued a report on the range of base premiums…
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- Insurance
Provider Utilization and Payment Data
CMS has released a data set on Provider Utilization and Payment Data: Referring Durable Medical Equipment, Prosthetics, Orthotics and Supplies…
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- Insurance
Q4 2014 TransUnion Healthcare Report
A survey of 7,400 Americans showed that 54 percent of respondents were confused by bills from health care providers, 64…
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- Medical Studies
Quality control metrics and deficiencies of medical facilities
Sometimes you want to localize a study by seeing how it relates to local health care facilities in your area.…
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- Health Policy
Rate reviews
The Affordable Care Act expands review of proposed insurance premium increases – but does not allow Washington to reject increases.…
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- Health Policy
Readmissions Reduction Program
CMS has published updated data about hospital readmission rates. Under the ACA, hospitals with high rates of 30-day readmissions for Medicare patients…
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- Firearm Violence
Real-Time Crime Index
Crime data from the federal government is reported very slowly. Typically, national estimates are published by the FBI in October…
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- Insurance
Report Card on State Price Transparency Laws
All but five states received a failing grade of F (on a scale from A to F), according to the…
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- Insurance
Report Card on State Price Transparency Laws, July 2015
This report from the Catalyst for Payment Reform (CPR) and the Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute shows little progress since…
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- Health Policy
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- Insurance
Report highlights depth and breadth of medical debt, affecting millions
By Joseph Burns | Updated Sept. 3, 2025 Tens of millions of Americans carry some level of medical debt, contributing…
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- Insurance
Report outlines flaws in pay for performance and CMS’ value-based purchasing program
A report (pdf) by Harold D. Miller, president and CEO of the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform, thoroughly…
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- Health Policy
Report: Hospital mergers lead to higher prices, unemployment and deaths
By Joseph Burns New research shows how hospital mergers have troubling effects that ripple through local communities. After mergers, hospitals…
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- Aging
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- Health Policy
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- Insurance
Report: When facing high prescription drug costs, many seniors skip doses
Almost all older adults (88.6%) take prescription medications and 82.7% of all seniors aged 65 and older have prescription drug…
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- Health Policy
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- Insurance
Reports show record high enrollment in ACA health plans
In January, preliminary data showed the Affordable Care Act marketplaces had record-high enrollment for the fourth straight year, Jared Ortaliza…
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- Insurance
Revealing the Truth about Healthcare Price Transparency
There is minimal evidence that making prices more transparent for consumers will drive health care value, according to this June…
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- Insurance
Rising to the Challenge: Community Health Centers Are Making Substance Use Disorder Treatment More Accessible Than Eve
Community Health Centers have long been at the forefront of providing high quality, cost effective care to underserved rural and…
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- COVID-19
RTNDA’s guide to COVID data
The Radio Television Digital News Association published a comprehensive guide to understanding and reporting on COVID-19 data. The guide defines…
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- Health Policy
Rural Health Information Hub
The Rural Health Information Hub has data sets and chart visualizations on health status, disparities, workforce and access
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- Health Policy
Rural hospital closures
The Sheps Center at the University of North Carolina has data and tracking tools for rural hospital closures by state.
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- Health Policy
Rural-Urban Health Chartbook
See appendix for information about the underlying data sets.
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- Health Policy
RWJF Data Hub
This is a user friendly RWJF data hub that you can explore and customize under the following six areas: Covering…
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- Health Policy
Scope of Practice and Medicaid: State Flexibility to Cover Advanced Practice Care
Click here to view the latest data. A report issued in May 2022 from the National Health Law Program explains…
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- Health Policy
Scorecards
The Commonwealth Fund’s Health System Data Center breaks down lots of state and local data, and includes searchable data on…
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- Health Policy
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- Insurance
Senate report exposes flawed and costly Medicare Advantage marketing practices
Medicare Advantage plans have engaged in marketing practices that rely on third-party marketers and other organizations that inflate costs for…
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- Aging
Senior Report 2023 Measures
Senior Report 2023 Measures from America’s Health Rankings drills down to specifics for each measure listed in the report, including…
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- Health Policy
Small business tax credit
The Affordable Care Act provides a temporary tax credit for small employers – defined as having 25 full-time workers or…
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- Health Policy
Small Share of Medicare Supplement Plans Offer Access to Dental, Vision, and Other Benefits Not Covered by Traditional Medicare
Researchers for The Commonwealth Fund found that a small and declining share (7%) of Medicare Supplement plans (also known as…
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- COVID-19
Solutions data
Journalists rely on data to confirm and inform key aspects of their reporting, often focusing on the worst performers in a…
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- Infectious Diseases
Sources for the United States
Any time there is an outbreak of an infectious disease, the public generally wants to know how common it is…
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- Health Policy
State Exchange Markets
The State Exchange Markets tool, from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, has a preliminary summary of policies and data collected from…
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- Health Equity
State reports
Affiliated with the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, the State Health Access Data Assistance Center (SHADAC) is a multidisciplinary health…
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- Insurance
Strategies for Improving the Affordability of High-Quality Health Care and Coverage
In a report published in July 2018, the National Coalition on Health Care explored the affordability crisis in the U.S.…
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- Firearm Violence
Study finds small to mid-size cities have higher rates of firearm homicide
Small and mid-sized U.S. cities have surpassed big cities’ gun homicide rates in recent years, according to an April 2023…
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- Insurance
Study show how surgery providers respond to reference pricing
Findings from a recent study suggest that reference pricing could cause patients to choose lower-cost providers and cause providers to…
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- Health Policy
Study shows having medical debt in U.S. leads to poor health and premature death
March 4, 2024 Findings from a recent study suggest that when U.S. consumers have medical debt in collections, they are…
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- Environmental Health
Study shows how cities can optimize environmental benefits of trees
By Paul Gordon Trees can have a significant impact in combating the effects of climate change because they provide relief…
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- Health Equity
Substance use
Monitoring the Future: This national survey, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) tracks drug, alcohol, and cigarette use…
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- Medical Studies
Suicide statistics
The coverage of suicide and prominent suicides in the news can have unintended consequences—such as an increase in copycat suicides—so…
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- Medical Studies
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Data
Medical studies might focus on specific populations, including Medicaid and/or lower income populations. If reporting on one of these studies…
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- Medical Studies
Supplements and nutrition products
It can be challenging to gather information on supplements and nutrition products, such as vitamins and minerals sold over the…
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- Health Policy
Tax provisions of the ACA (January 2018)
This IRS page has links to data related to the tax provisions of the ACA for individuals, businesses, government and insurers.
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- Insurance
The 2016 Health Care Cost and Utilization Report
The Health Care Cost Institute issued a report in January 2018 on health care spending among employed workers and their…
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- Firearm Violence
The Child Opportunity Index
By Kaitlin Washburn The Child Opportunity Index, or COI, is a measurement of the quality of resources and conditions in…
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- Aging
The Data Query System
The Data Query System from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics is a new data visualization tool that can…
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- Health Policy
The first public option health plan struggles to gain traction
As prospects decline for a single-payer Medicare for All program, health reform advocates turned to a government-designed insurance plan that…
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- Health Policy
The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Recent Federal Policies on Small Business Health Insurance
Contrary to some predictions, small businesses’ health coverage offerings remained relatively stable during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report…
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- Firearm Violence
The Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention Data Repository
A data repository managed by the University of Michigan exists to help researchers fill critical data gaps on firearm violence. …
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- Environmental Health
The link between mental health and climate change
By Paul Gordon Every year, the devastating impacts of human-caused climate change are increasing globally. However, the link between mental…
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- Health Policy
The Poorest Children Lost Health Insurance During The Pandemic
In this report, researchers noted a flaw in a federal report on health insurance in 2020 from the U.S. Census…
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- Insurance
The Relationship Between Health Plan Type, Use of Specialty Medications, and Worker Productivity
In an issue brief, researchers at the Employee Benefit Research Institute show that spending on specialty medications is expected to…
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- Insurance
The Rise of Retail Coverage: Report shows why some employers will shift to private exchanges
A report, The Rise of Retail Health Coverage, by the consulting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP shows that about one third of…
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- Health Policy
The RWJF DataHub
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s DataHub tracks state-level data and allows users to customize and visualize facts and figures on…
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- Health Policy
The Shorenstein Center’s guide to health and science databases
The Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School has assembled a guide to databases, with…
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- Health Policy
The U.S. Department of Justice filed a civil lawsuit on Feb. 24
along with the Minnesota and New York Attorneys General to stop UnitedHealth Group’s plan to acquire Change Healthcare, a revenue…
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- Health Policy
Tracking Americans’ experiences in the health insurance marketplaces
The Commonwealth Fund has developed an interactive data set based on its research about people shopping for health coverage in the exchanges.
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- COVID-19
Transmission data
The coronavirus is spread through the air, especially in indoor spaces. While it is not as infectious as measles, scientists…
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- Health IT
Trends in health IT
Top of Mind for Top Health Systems 2022 – Report of health system leaders’ thoughts on health technology and patient…
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- Insurance
Trends in Insurance Coverage, Source of Private Coverage Among Young Adults
This report shows that, since September 2010 – when adults aged 19–25 were able to obtain dependent private health insurance…
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- Health Policy
Trends in Insurance Coverage, Source of Private Coverage Among Young Adults
This report shows that, since September 2010 – when adults aged 19–25 were able to obtain dependent private health insurance…
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- Medical Studies
U.S. and world prisons
Reporting on prisons is typically a beat for criminal justice reporters, but as more research reveals failures in prison health…
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- Health Policy
U.S. Out-of-Pocket Healthcare Spending Swells To $491 Billion, Up 10%
Consumer spending for out-of-pocket (OOP) health care costs will rise to an estimated $491.6 billion in 2021, a 10% increase…
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- Health Policy
Unvaccinated COVID-19 hospitalizations cost the U.S. health system billions of dollars
Preventable hospitalizations for unvaccinated patients cost $2.3 billion in only two months: June and July 2021, according to data from…
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- Health Policy
Updated ACA Health Insurance Marketplace Subsidy Calculator
In October 2021, KFF published a revised ACA Health Insurance Marketplace Calculator to help consumers understand how much they would…
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- Health Policy
Updated hospital data allows reporters to identify ongoing problems
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has been reporting patient survival rates for hospitals across the United States for…
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- Health Equity
Urban health
World Health Organization on Urban Health: The WHO’s Global Health Observatory offers key data on urban health worldwide, from urban…
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- Health Policy
Use data to cover the Affordable Care Act
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has six databases on its “Reform by the Numbers” website that can be useful for…
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- Insurance
Utilization of products, services by Medicare beneficiaries
CMS has released a data set on Provider Utilization and Payment Data: Referring Durable Medical Equipment, Prosthetics, Orthotics and Supplies (DMEPOS) Public Use…
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- Health Policy
Utilization of products, services by Medicare beneficiaries
CMS has released a data set on Provider Utilization and Payment Data: Referring Durable Medical Equipment, Prosthetics, Orthotics and Supplies (DMEPOS) Public…
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- COVID-19
Vaccinations
Website for answering vaccination questions for people at high risk for COVID-19 The California Chronic Care Coalition (CCCC), in collaboration with the Healthcare…
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- Medical Studies
Vaccines and Immunization Data
When writing about vaccines, especially new vaccines or new recommendations, it’s helpful to review the data and presentation slides that…
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- Infectious Diseases
Vaccines and immunizations
The most complete record of national and states rates of immunization coverage for each vaccine are in the National Immunization Surveys.…
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- Infectious Diseases
Vector-borne diseases
Diseases spread by mosquitos, ticks and other insect vectors are on the rise in the U.S. as the planet continues…
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- Health Equity
Veterans
The Office of Health Equity (OHE) was established in 2012. On its website, you’ll find data on the top 50…
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- Aging
Wellbeing
Food Environment Atlas: Many elderly suffer from poor or malnutrition. They may live in food deserts, can’t afford nutritious food, or…
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- Insurance
What Happens to Health care Costs When Nonprofit Hospitals Take a Financial Hit?
Contrary to conventional wisdom, nonprofit hospitals generally act like for-profit hospitals, at least following a financial crisis, researchers report. Rather…
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- Insurance
Who Uses a Price Transparency Tool? Implications for Increasing Consumer Engagement
Research data published in an article shows use of an online price transparency tool was relatively low, echoing prior research…
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- Health Policy
Who Went Without Health Insurance in 2019, and Why?
In 2019, about 12% of the U.S. population under age 65 (about 30 million Americans) were not enrolled in a…
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- Insurance
Why Value-Based Payment Isn’t Working, and How to Fix It
In a report, Harold D. Miller, president and CEO of the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform, argues that…
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- Health Policy
Workforce
According to the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, fewer than one out of three physicians in direct patient…
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