From a hospital’s perspective, do postsurgical complications for procedures such as CABG pay? Quite possibly, if the patient has private insurance or Medicare, according to results published April 17 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The 2014 budget proposed by President Barack Obama bumps up funding for healthcare research but it also slices into payments hospitals receive for medical training. Cardiology associations said the moves may have deleterious effects on the physician workforce and research.

The vilified practice of providing free drug samples to physicians to dispense to their patients may not be so pernicious after all. At least, not when the drugs are a generic statin.

Power in numbers. A health insurer and three hospital systems have teamed up to track the long-term effectiveness of contrast media, stents, defibrillators, heart valves and other implantable devices to identify top performers and negotiate purchasing agreements with manufacturers.

POZEN Inc., a pharmaceutical company committed to transforming medicine that transforms lives, announced the results of a POZEN sponsored study at the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy’s 25th Annual Meeting and Expo on April 4, 2013. 

In a competitive environment, how can a hospital protect its profit margins? With PCI, shortening the length of stay and reducing risk may provide answers.

Using transradial rather than transfemoral access for PCI saves a hospital on average $553, according to an analysis published in the March issue of the American Heart Journal. Much of the decrease in costs was attributed to a shorter post-procedural length of stay, “and that [savings] went up to $1,000 in people who were at high risk to bleed,” the senior author told Cardiovascular Business. 

Renal denervation systems, percutaneous aortic valve replacement technologies and bioabsorbable coronary stents lead the pack for innovative cardiovascular devices in Novation’s spring 2013 CV Watch report.