Economics

This channel highlights factors that impact hospital and healthcare economics and revenue. This includes news on healthcare policies, reimbursement, marketing, business plans, mergers and acquisitions, supply chain, salaries, staffing, and the implementation of a cost-effective environment for patients and providers.

Podcast explores a cancer patient’s quest for low-cost MRIs

In the most recent episode of the Kaiser Health News podcast “An Arm And A Leg,” host Dan Weissmann sits down with a patient living with brain cancer to learn how she shopped around for low cost brain MRIs, ultimately saving hundreds each year.

Bribes common when vendors sell imaging equipment to Chinese hospitals

Leading imaging vendors regularly bribe government officials in China to get their products in area hospitals, according to an in-depth report from the New York Times.

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Major companies selected in FDA's drug tracking blockchain pilot

IBM, along with KPMG, Merck and Walmart have been selected by the FDA to participate in a blockchain project that aims to improve the drug supply chain.

Vendors, hospital officials anchor corrupt healthcare culture in China

A culture of corruption allows giant companies like General Electric, Siemens, Philips and Toshiba to bribe Chinese government and hospital officials into purchasing expensive medical equipment, including imaging modalities, according to a lengthy piece published by the New York Times.

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Health-insurance technology company raises $205M in new funding round

A San Francisco-based startup that uses a proprietary machine-learning platform to identify the care needs of covered employees has raised $205 million to “address fundamental health insurance service issues that plague U.S. consumers and employers alike.”

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Merit Medical announces acquisition of Brightwater Medical

Merit Medical Systems, a medical device company based out of South Jordan, Utah, has acquired Brightwater Medical.

Wealth, debt and spending: How cardiologists manage their money in 2019

Cardiologists’ salaries are up, their savings are steady and their debt is minimal, according to Medscape’s annual Cardiologist Wealth and Debt Report.

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Cardiologist found guilty of billing insurers $13M for needless angina treatments

An eight-day trial and two-hour jury deliberation has culminated in the conviction of Pennsylvania cardiologist Samirkumar J. Shah, who on June 14 was found guilty of two counts of healthcare fraud for falsely billing insurers for unnecessary angina treatments.