Friday Five: Top 5 healthcare business news items from the MCOL Weekend edition

Every business day, MCOL posts feature stories making news on the business of health care. Here are five we think are particularly important for this week: Ten ERs In Colorado Tried To Curtail Opioids And Did Better Than Expected One of the most common reasons patients head to an emergency room is pain. In response, doctors may try something simple at first, like ibuprofen or acetaminophen. If that wasn’t effective, the second line of defense has been the big guns. Kaiser Health News Friday, February 23, 2018 Evaluations Of Medicaid Experiments By States, CMS Are Weak, GAO Says With federal spending on Medicaid experiments soaring in recent years, a congressional watchdog said state and federal governments fail to adequately evaluate if the efforts improve care and save money. Kaiser Health News Friday, February 23, 2018 HHS deletes budget request for $11.5 billion in risk-corridor funding The HHS walked back a request for more than $11.5 billion to fund the Affordable Care Act's risk-corridor program after health insurers suing for those payments said the budget item strengthened their cases. Modern Healthcare Thursday, February 22, 2018 Advocacy groups say better data sharing, consistent privacy laws will help control opioid prescribing A wide array of technology can help limit the impact of the opioid epidemic, according to the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), but only if certain policy changes address long-standing concerns like patient matching and telehealth reimbursement. Fierce Healthcare Wednesday, February 21, 2018 Trump proposal boosts skimpy insurance plans, again undercutting Obamacare The Trump administration is proposing to expand the availability of short-term health insurance plans that some deride as “junk insurance” — an effort that could give consumers cheaper coverage options but undermine Obamacare's marketplaces and popular protections for pre-existing medical conditions. Politico Tuesday, February 20, 2018 These and more weekly news items on the business of healthcare are featured in the MCOL Weekend edition, along with the MCOL Tidbits, and more, for MCOL Premium level members.