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: 

Medicare Trims Payments To 800 Hospitals, Citing Patient Safety Incidents

Eight hundred hospitals will be paid less by Medicare this year because of high rates of infections and patient injuries, federal records show.

Kaiser Health News

Friday, March 1, 2019 

CMS considers tossing hospital star ratings methodology

The CMS is considering scrapping the model it uses to assign hospital star ratings, signaling a big shift from the agency's stance just seven months ago.

Modern Healthcare

Thursday, February 28, 2019 

Did some pharma execs offer misleading testimony to a Senate committee?

During Tuesday’s Senate hearing on drug pricing, each of the seven pharma execs insisted their companies have never withheld samples from generic rivals, a step that has raised concerns about unfairly thwarting competition.

Stat News

Thursday, February 28, 2019 

Anthem Says Bid to Save $49 Billion Deal Was ‘Cut Off at Knees’

Cigna Corp. officials did everything they could to sabotage a $48.9 billion merger with Anthem Inc., including refusing to consider divestitures that would have helped the deal win regulatory approval, Anthem’s general counsel told a judge.

Bloomberg

Tuesday, February 26, 2019 

U.S. Judge Will Not Block Amazon-Berkshire-JPMorgan Health Venture's New Hire

The decision by U.S. District Judge Mark Wolf in Boston came in a lawsuit closely watched in the industry for clues about the future plans of the venture, which was announced in January 2018 with a goal of lowering healthcare costs.

NY Times

Monday, February 25, 2019

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.