medicaid

An Elkridge-based organization that runs group homes for individuals with developmental disabilities will pay a $331,000 fine to the state after the Maryland Attorney General accused it of Medicaid fraud.

By Carrie Wells

Sep 12, 2016

The state will change the way it reimburses for the drug treatment of Medicaid patients to put more of an emphasis on counseling.

By Andrea K. McDaniels

Sep 6, 2016

Forty years is long enough to prove that Maryland's Medicare experiment doesn't work.

The state health department has chosen four companies to help Medicaid patients at risk for diabetes adopt lifestyle changes.

By Andrea K. McDaniels

Aug 31, 2016

As opioid-related overdose deaths continue to rise across the state, some who treat addiction are criticizing a move by the state to cut off access to a drug treatment that is used by thousands of patients and considered effective.

Maryland's health department is precipitously removing an effective and widely used medication for the treatment of opioid addiction from the Medicaid list of preferred drugs as of July 1, meaning that it can only be prescribed after an arduous prior authorization process. This action will seriously restrict options for effective treatment of this devastating disease.

Maryland is about to become the latest state to offer special savings accounts for people with disabilities, so they can work and save money -- or their families can set aside money -- without jeopardizing their benefits such as Medicaid.

By Pamela Wood

Jun 21, 2016

Evergreen may owe $22 million to larger insurers under federal risk adjustment program

Three years after the launch of the state's health insurance exchange under the Affordable Care Act, three in five of Maryland's eligible uninsured still lack coverage.

By Andrea K. McDaniels

May 28, 2016

Trump should pledge to retain and improve Obamacare, not kick millions of working Americans from the insurance rolls

An Owings Mills man convicted of stealing more than $100,000 in a Medicaid fraud scheme was sentenced to 10 years in jail with all but one year suspended Tuesday, state prosecutors said.

By Colin Campbell

May 17, 2016

Insurance companies in Maryland will cover all forms of birth control — from birth control pills to vasectomies -- with no out-of-pocket costs to consumers under a bill being signed into law on Tuesday.

By Pamela Wood

May 9, 2016

Out of jail and uninsured

Four Maryland community health centers receive money to expand

By Meredith Cohn

May 5, 2016

Maryland's efforts to speed health insurance to ex-offenders will pay off

Maryland will receive portion of settlement reached with the drug maker Wyeth to settle allegations it underpaid rebates to the Medicaid program.

By Meredith Cohn

May 3, 2016

Seeking to slash the red tape that keeps ex-prisoners with chronic health ailments, mental illness and drug addiction from getting health coverage, Maryland has proposed giving thousands of newly-released inmates temporary Medicaid membership with few questions asked.

Medicare cuts would hurt patients

Maryland lawmakers gave final approval to the state budget on Tuesday, finishing their most important task nearly two weeks before the end of the General Assembly session.

Minister: From seeing those who opposed abortion on religious grounds until it was their own family member who needed one, I have come to believe that all women have a moral right to make their own moral decisions.

University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center plans to embark on a $100 million renovation of its operating rooms – the first major capital project since a scandal involving one of its former doctors plunged the hospital into financial distress.

By Andrea K. McDaniels

Feb 22, 2016

Carroll County Health Department, dental clinic

February is National Children's Dental Health Month, but practicing good oral hygiene is something we should be making sure all our children are doing all year long.

Over 80 percent of the patients we see at Bon Secours are covered by Medicare or Medicaid, or they are uninsured. To provide the medical attention our patients need, we deliver a great deal of uncompensated care, which 340B helps us sustain. Without this program, which some drugmakers are pressuring Congress to scale back, those with the greatest need could lose critical services, and our efforts to serve all of our patients with the best care possible would be compromised.

A federal jury found the owner of an Owings Mills imaging firm guilty Wednesday of defrauding the federal Medicare and Medicaid system of more than $7.5 million and contributing to the deaths of two patients.

By Andrea K. McDaniels

Feb 17, 2016

Getting proper medical care in Freddie Gray's neighborhood should not be the daunting challenge that some enterprising college students have documented

More than 162,000 Marylanders signed up for insurance under the Affordable Care Act, a 33 percent jump from last year that surpasses a state goal of 150,000 new people on the health insurance rolls.

By Andrea K. McDaniels

Feb 10, 2016

The single biggest threat to the survival of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is not the Republican-led legislative effort to repeal it. It is inaction by the administration's own agency that is tasked with implementing Obamacare: the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The Department of Labor is proposing an update to rules governing which white-collar workers are exempt from overtime pay. The proposal would make an additional five million employees eligible, more than doubling the existing salary threshold from $23,660 to $50,440.

By Lorraine Mirabella

Jan 30, 2016

Open enrollment on the state's health insurance exchange has been extended a week because of the blizzard that crippled the region and likely prevented consumers from seeking assistance

By Meredith Cohn

Jan 29, 2016

An increasing number of women are undergoing minimum invasive surgery to treat early stages of uterine cancer, but new research by Johns Hopkins Medicine found that there are large racial and economic disparities to who is getting these procedures.

By Andrea K. McDaniels

Jan 23, 2016

With about two weeks left before the deadline to enroll in health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, the number of Marylanders who have signed up for private plans is 60 percent higher than last year, state officials said.

By Andrea K. McDaniels

Jan 21, 2016

The Horizon Foundation is a partner in Sugar Free Kids Maryland, a statewide coalition established in 2014 to combat childhood obesity and teenage diabetes, which announced its proposal for the Maryland Healthy Vending Act, which would restrict what can be sold in vending machines, for the 2016 General Assembly session.

By Lisa Philip

Jan 6, 2016

Libraries in each county participate in health insurance enrollment day

By Meredith Cohn

Dec 29, 2015

In an effort to improve counseling services for substance abuse, the state is considering changing how it pays clinics and health facilities that administer methadone treatment to recovering drug addicts.

By Andrea K. McDaniels

Dec 27, 2015

Maryland is trying to convince hard to reach populations to enroll in Obamacare.

By Andrea K. McDaniels

Dec 13, 2015

Hospitals in the region can spend up to $15 million to create up to 375 jobs as part of a program to employ residents of the city's toughest neighborhoods, according to a last-minute agreement among state regulators.

By Meredith Cohn

Dec 9, 2015

After a nearly yearlong dispute with the contractor helping upgrade the state's Medicaid computer system, Maryland officials have cut ties with company and plan to hire outside counsel to review if the state is due any refunds

By Meredith Cohn

Dec 9, 2015

CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, the state's largest insurer, is expanding coverage to transgender patients that will make gender transition surgeries more affordable for many residents.

By Andrea K. McDaniels

Nov 19, 2015

More then 57,000 enroll in 9 days on health exchange, mostly in Medicaid

By Meredith Cohn

Nov 12, 2015

Omega Healthcare Investors Inc., a Hunt Valley firm that owns skilled nursing facilities across the country, said it earned $83.3 million in the three months ended September 30, 35 percent more than the same period last year, as its acquisition of a smaller competitor earlier this year lifted revenues.

By Natalie Sherman

Nov 3, 2015

The third year of open enrollment under the Affordable Care Act began Sunday and exchange officials said they are focusing more on consumer experience and finding hard-to-reach Marylanders as they work toward a goal of enrolling 150,000 people in private plans, up from 115,000 people last year.

The shocking case of Daraprim — and other drugs like it — highlights the need for a national law to prohibit pharmaceutical price gouging.

The Hogan administration plans to require that all Maryland 1-year-olds and 2-year-olds be tested for lead poisoning, declaring the new rule is needed because thousands of youngsters are at risk for lasting health problems.

By Timothy B. Wheeler

Oct 26, 2015

Congress should stop sending taxpayer-funded benefits like Medicaid and SSI to Cuba

Washington must change how it calculates Social Security and Medicare benefits

Pro-gun politicians want to improve access to mental health care: It's a hollow excuse but let's take them up on it

Danford R. "Dan" Layne, a decorated Vietnam War veteran who later became a supervisory specialist for the Centers for Medicare Medicaid Services, died Wednesday of cancer at his Cockeysville home. He was 67.

By Frederick N. Rasmussen

Oct 3, 2015

Latest attacks on Planned Parenthood are false, highly partisan and hypocritical — and unworthy of serious discussion

Reduction of uninsured is difficult to measure — but is mostly a result of Medicaid expansion, not genuine health insurance reform