medicaid

You can call it misinformation, spin control or propaganda. Regardless, there are things that some people insist on believing that collide with the inconvenient truths of history.

Despite decades of community water fluoridation, fluoride toothpaste use, improvements in nutrition and hygiene education, dental caries — also known as cavities — remain the most common childhood disease in America. They lead to pain, infections, nutritional deficits, lack of sleep, poor concentration, slower physical growth and a loss of about a dozen school hours per child.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently unveiled proposed changes to their payment approach for cancer care services delivered to American seniors. Hidden within the complicated language and updated payment codes lies a harsh reality for community-based oncology centers and, more importantly, the patients we serve.

After five decades, federal health insurance program for elderly and disabled is nether broke nor broken, but could use a little tender loving care

Maryland health officials are seeking permission to use federal dollars to pay for Medicaid patients to get substance abuse and mental health treatment outside the state's general hospitals.

The federal government and other parties must approve a settlement deal between Maryland and Noridian Health Services over the botched health exchange before it is finalized.

If you've ever used the Baltimore Beltway in rush hour to get from Owings Mills to Social Security headquarters or the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in Woodlawn, you know it's a nightmare.

Baltimore County's Fire Department will start charging for taking people to the hospital by ambulance -- a fee that will be collected from a patient's insurance company.

Maryland is one of more than a dozen states where new Medicaid enrollees under President Barack Obama's health care law have surpassed initial projects, though state analysts say Maryland is actually spending less on its Medicaid population because federal health care reform is covering 100,000 people who used to get health care paid entirely by the state.

When a new generation of hepatitis C drugs began coming on the market about a year and a half ago, some feared the millions who could be cured of the potentially deadly disease would never get them. The price for a three-month daily course began at $1,000 a pill.

An inspector general has found that Maryland incorrectly approved and then billed Medicaid for services for the developmentally disabled in hundreds of thousands of cases and that the state owes the federal government more than $34 million, according to an audit to be released Tuesday.

Maryland hospitals collectively generated more than $100 million in Medicare savings in the first year of a reformed payment system being watched closely by the federal government as a possible national model for reducing health care costs.

State officials finally seem to realize that no one solution will solve the heroin crisis.

It's time that Maryland's Medicaid program followed the Maryland Commission on Autism's advice, and continued its tradition of supporting people with autism and their families by creating a plan to add slots to the Autism Waiver program.

Yes, the governor won based on his promise to rein in spending, but even on those terms, his decision on school funding makes no sense

So better late than never: Freddie Gray's death and the protests that ensued are about race. We remain a city, state and nation far from achieving anything close to racial parity or fairness. No matter who started them, that's why the fires burn.

The Medical Innovation Act would give the NIH a funding boost by forcing large pharmaceutical companies that have committed wrongdoing to support the NIH. The bill would ask these companies to pay a relatively small additional sum into NIH research after they enter into settlement agreements with the government.

No hospital in Maryland earned a top score under a new, simplified ranking system from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that adds to the collection of sometimes conflicting assessments of the nation's health care facilities.

Money the legislature set aside would assure access for hundreds of thousands of Marylanders.

Hogan's failure to restore funding to health care budget is certain to prove costly

Gov. Larry Hogan can stand tough and play into the hands of those who would defeat him, or he can compromise and set himself on a path to a second term.

The owner of an Owings Mills imaging firm already indicted for defrauding Medicare and Medicaid of more than $7.5 million was also accused in a new federal indictment this week of contributing to the deaths of four people whose disease and infection were not caught on X-rays becase employees were not qualified to read them.

About a year ago, the scandal surrounding the deaths of veterans waiting for care from the Veterans Health Administration finally publicly exposed the VA's ineptitude. Since then, Congress conducted inquiries, the FBI commenced investigations, the secretary for Veterans Affairs resigned, and some regional directors were fired. Nearly anyone with any modicum of power in Washington, D.C., vowed to fix the VA. But the problem is this: The VA is simply too large and too bureaucratic for reforms to

The governor wants to be able to say he cut taxes, and he's willing to hurt a lot more people than he would help in the process

The message from the majority of non-profits is that Carroll County government funding needs to be increased.

WASHINGTON — A long-awaited audit of Maryland's health insurance exchange has found that the state improperly billed the federal government for $28.4 million as former Gov. Martin O'Malley's administration struggled to launch what would become one of the most troubled websites in the nation.

Prevention key to dental, overall health

A member of the board that oversees the state exchange where people buy insurance plans under health reform said the entity needs to take more care in approving contracts.

Recently, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) declared that Medicare would now be paying for lung cancer prevention with spiral CT scans. But such testing may be doing more harm than good.

Despite some dust-ups of partisan rhetoric, the Republican governor and Democratic legislature show they can work together on the budget.

House lawmakers crafted a plan Friday to reverse many of Gov. Larry Hogan's budget cuts and restore spending in areas they thought he shortchanged — education, Medicaid and a pay raise for state employees.

It's welcome news that Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh is proposing legislation that will expand Maryland's False Claims Act (the current law addresses Medicaid fraud only) , but the proposed legislation falls short because it lacks a vital element to the success of the federal False Claims Act: a strong, private qui tam provision.

Justice Kennedy turns a debate about four words in the ACA into a constitutional question.

The Maryland attorney general's Medicaid fraud control team is investigating LifeLine Inc., the state contractor that managed a group home for disabled foster children where a 10-year-old Baltimore boy died last summer.

While the state's investment in substance use treatment has never met the need for care, Maryland is building a solid public health and health care financing system that can be mobilized to address our overdose epidemic. The state can turn the corner on the tragic loss of life by taking full advantage of its health care system.

State auditors are criticizing Maryland's health department for the way it hired a contractor to replace the system used to process Medicaid payments — and later having to suspend work with the company.

Marylanders who get dinged with a tax penalty this year because they didn't realize federal law requires everyone to have health insurance will get extra time to enroll in a plan.

Rules protecting LGBT people from discrimination have a big impact on health care

Businesses benefit from the state programs that aid their workers.

Hogan's Medicaid spending cuts

Gov. Larry Hogan's Medicaid cuts are penny wise, pound foolish.