Although the number of women entering the physician workforce has increased over the past two decades, their earnings still lag behind those of their male colleagues. In a research letter published online in JAMA Internal Medicine, researchers reported that according to the latest salary data, the earnings gap between male and female physicians was $56,019.

The median household income in the U.S. dropped by about $4,000 between 2007 and 2013. Is cardiology immune?

Effective October 1, Cook Medical’s Zilver® PTX® Drug-Eluting Peripheral Stent qualifies for new-technology add-on payments under Medicare’s hospital inpatient prospective payment system.

Charges for intravenous saline given to patients in one food poisoning outbreak varied from single to triple digits, and were even higher when hospitals added in administration costs. The New York Times attempted to track how an item that Medicare prices at $1.07 a liter could become so inflated.

The trend to consolidate hospitals is likely to accelerate due to the Affordable Care Act and other forces, the New York Times reported. By merging, hospitals and chains hope to reduce costs.

ProPublica and NPR teamed up in an analysis of Medicare data to investigate prescribing habits for nebivolol (Bystolic), a treatment for hypertension. They reported that 17 of the top prescribers in 2010 accepted $283,450 in fees for promotional talks and more than $20,000 for meals from the drugmaker, Forest Laboratories. Most of the same names appeared again in results for 2011, the most recent year that data were available.

Most people agree reimbursement that rewards volume has fueled overuse and high costs for U.S. healthcare. But few agree on the best replacement. François de Brantes, executive director of the Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute, made a case for pay-for-performance incentives recently in the Wall Street Journal. Steffie Woolhandler, MD, MPH, of the City University of New York School of Public Health, shared why she thinks it is a bad idea.

Today, members of the Heart Rhythm Society (HRS) are visiting 35 congressional offices on Capitol Hill to raise visibility and support for two proposals: the “Medicare Program Integrity Improvement and Education Act” and the “Teaching Children to Save Lives Act.” HRS is advocating for the support of these two bills because both intend to deliver outcomes aligned with the Society’s mission to improve the care of patients by advancing research, education and optimal health care policies and standards.