Joe Turcotte of Colorado quit his work-from home medical billing job to set out on an estimated 6-million-step journey across the U.S., The Gazette reports.  By Angie Stewart - 6/6/18

Medicare's main trust fund will be depleted by 2026, three years earlier than expected, according to updated projections from Medicare's Board of Trustees, Bloomberg reports.  By Eric Oliver - 6/6/18

A system error caused Cigna to expose the bank account information of some clients in Asia, Bloomberg reports.  By Angie Stewart - 6/5/18

Michael Frey, MD, pled guilty in federal court to receiving kickbacks from a medical equipment supplier and pharmacy sales representative, according to a Nasdaq report.  By Laura Dyrda - 6/5/18

1. Safety  By Marc Toth, CEO, ACA Cardiovascular - 6/5/18

A former coding employee accused St. Joseph, Mo.-based Heartland Regional Medical Center of wrongfully firing her for expressing concerns about fraudulent billing practices, the St. Louis Record reports.  By Angie Stewart - 6/4/18

Revenue cycle management begins with the patient appointment and doesn't end until every last penny is collected, said former Miami-based Gastro Health CEO Alex Fernandez, MBA, CMPE.  By Angie Stewart - 6/1/18

During a speech, President Donald Trump predicted several drugmakers would voluntarily drop their prices by a "massive" amount, Politico reports.  By Eric Oliver - 5/31/18

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., introduced the Choose Medicare Act in the U.S. Senate to provide consumers and employers the option to enroll into a newly created universal Medicare option.  By Eric Oliver - 5/31/18

New Jersey is the second U.S. state to implement a statewide individual mandate pertaining to health insurance, Politico reports.  By Eric Oliver - 5/31/18

Patient education and outreach hasn't kept pace with healthcare spending, which is projected to reach $608 billion in out-of-pocket costs by 2019, according to InstaMed's Trends in Healthcare Payments Eighth Annual Report: 2017.  By Angie Stewart - 5/31/18

WellCare Health Plans agreed to acquire Meridian Health Plan of Michigan and Illinois, as well as pharmacy benefit manager MeridianRx, for $2.5 billion in cash.  By Angie Stewart - 5/30/18

Cigna settled a lawsuit accusing three centers of violating the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, according to Law 360.  By Laura Dyrda - 5/29/18

Two Value Health portfolio companies, Healthcare Re and Muve Health, partnered to implement the nation's first reinsurance policy for an at-risk prospective bundle.  By Angie Stewart - 5/29/18

CMS released ICD-10-PCS updates for hospital inpatient coding professionals to use for discharges from Oct. 1, 2018 through Sept. 30, 2019.  By Angie Stewart - 5/29/18

Consumers are now paying for a greater percentage of their healthcare bills. The average annual out-of-pocket costs per patient rose almost 230 percent between 2006 and 2015, according to a report from the Kaiser Family Foundation.1 In addition, more employers are offering high-deductible health plans than ever before. In fact, the number of employers offering HDHPs grew from just 23% in 2016 to 44% in 2017 in the education industry, 41%in 2016 to 51% in 2017 in retail, 48% in 2016 to 54% in 2017 in manufacturing and 55% in 2016 to 61% in 2017 in manufacturing, according to a study from Benefitfocus.2  By Nader Samii, CEO of National Medical Billing Services, and Lisa Rock, President of National Medical Billing Services - 5/29/18

The U.S. government pays $685 billion to subsidize health insurance annually, Bloomberg reports.  By Eric Oliver - 5/24/18

Anthem will acquire Aspire Health, a palliative care provider.  By Eric Oliver - 5/24/18

The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association believes its Blue Distinction Total Care program is performing 96 percent better than competing programs in quality and outcome-related metrics.  By Eric Oliver - 5/24/18

The uninsured rate for 2017 held at 9.1 percent (more than 29 million people) despite attempts by President Donald Trump to dismantle the ACA, the Los Angeles Times reports.  By Eric Oliver - 5/23/18