The price of a lipid panel can vary by as much as $328 in Dallas and by as little as $16 in Birmingham, Ala. An analysis by the health services company Castlight Health also found Fresno, Calif., to be a relative bargain for a head CT scan, a lower back MRI and a visit with a primary care physician.

The long-term cost of patients with diabetes who undergo CABG will add $84 million to the health system in China, according to a study that found China has the highest prevalence rate for diabetes mellitus in the world. The U.S. is not far behind, though.

Declining coronary angioplasty volume in the U.S. and Canada will keep growth in the device market tepid, according to an analysis by MarketsandMarkets. The company projected the markets for interventional and peripheral vascular devices will inch up to about $6 billion by 2018.

An innovative program focused on outcomes in patients with stable ischemic heart disease could change the cost of healthcare. On May 22, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation granted $15.8 million to the SMARTCare pilot program, which is expected to save $42.2 million over the three-year pilot program across 10 participating sites.

The architects of the release of physician-specific Medicare payments and the president of the American College of Cardiology (ACC) agree on at least one point: Making the healthcare system’s costs more transparent is a good thing. But they part ways on the quality and usefulness of the data made public in April in two perspectives published online May 28 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Hospitals can lower the cost of an initial acute stroke admission by shortening treatment times or reducing use of routine anesthesia in patients who receive medical or endovascular treatment, an analysis of the IMS III Trial found.

Hospitalization and costs for atrial fibrillation spiked between 2000 and 2010 in the U.S., particularly among octogenarians. The authors of the analysis published online May 19 in Circulation called the trends alarming.

Starting salaries for cardiologists in 2013 exceeded the national median for specialty care physicians in the U.S., according to the Medical Group Management Association. Results from its annual salary survey hinted at a favorable market for early career physicians.