The phenomenon of taking five or more medicines at the same time has become so common that it now has its own term – polypharmacy – and there is no doubt that it increases the risk of dizziness, confusion, and loss of balance.

The post Too Many Prescriptions, Too Many Fatal Falls appeared first on MedCity News.

Since its inception, AI in prior auth has only been at work in the commercial healthcare marketplace. Now new innovative approaches that reframe prior auth as a resource instead of a roadblock have come to Medicare via the WISeR model.

The post ‘Prior Authorization’ Has Become a Dirty Word in Healthcare, But it Might Be Medicare’s Smartest Path Forward appeared first on MedCity News.

The question is no longer whether shareback matters. It is whether the healthcare ecosystem is willing to prioritize it in practice by recognizing it in policy measurement, monitoring, and enforcement, as well as investing in the technical and governance structures needed to make shareback routine, high-quality, measurable, and reportable.

The post Why Quality Shareback is the Missing Fuel for the Healthcare Interoperability Engine appeared first on MedCity News.

Consumers are inundated with false information circulating online about GLP-1 medicines, which causes confusion and can lead to potentially serious health problems resulting from dosing errors and adverse reactions to ingredients in compounded GLP-1 products.

The post It’s Time to Put Guardrails on GLP-1 Compounding appeared first on MedCity News.

Innovation in women’s health technology is about improving input data, refining performance criteria and ensuring design assumptions align with biological reality and real-world usage. When those fundamentals are in place, products are more accurate, more trustworthy and more likely to be adopted by clinicians and consumers alike.

The post Women’s Health Is Central to the Future of Digital Health appeared first on MedCity News.

More therapeutic options times more data per option times the same number of clinical hours equals something that breaks. The practices that will thrive when the next wave of longevity therapeutics arrives are the ones that have already solved this.

The post AI Drug Discovery Is Reshaping Longevity Medicine. Is Your Practice Ready? appeared first on MedCity News.

Sixty million rural Americans aren’t asking for another strategic framework. They’re asking for care — accessible, affordable, and delivered with dignity.

The post Rural America Doesn’t Need Another Framework … It Needs Care by September 2026 appeared first on MedCity News.

For consumers and clinicians the difference between “FDA-cleared,” “FDA-registered,” and general wellness products is not always obvious. Clear communication about intended use and supporting evidence is essential for maintaining trust.

The post Red Light Therapy’s Regulatory Implications appeared first on MedCity News.

While CREST-2 can stand as a guideline for understanding ACS therapies in case-by-case scenarios, it’s critical that trial conclusions do not replace clinical judgment and years of previous research.

The post Why CREST-2 Trial Results Should Inform, Not Replace, Clinical Judgment appeared first on MedCity News.

Health systems can turn insights into action, ensuring that preventive care actually happens by combining accurate risk prediction with human outreach and careful planning.

The post AI Can Expand Access to Healthcare — But Only With Human Action appeared first on MedCity News.

Congress has already granted the FDA flexibility in evaluating therapies for rare diseases, including the use of real-world evidence and natural history data when traditional large-scale trials are not feasible. The question before the FDA now is not if those tools can be applied – they can – but if the agency has the courage to use them before more patients lose their autonomy, and ultimately, their lives, to rare disease.

The post The Lethal Cost of Regulatory Perfection in Rare Disease appeared first on MedCity News.

General-purpose LLMs have meaningful value in healthcare – they can support education, documentation and research – as well as lower barriers to knowledge and help improve communication. But acting as a clinical assistant embedded in care delivery requires more – it needs longitudinal EHR grounding, explicit encoding of clinical guidelines, transparent and traceable reasoning and the ability to operate securely at a population scale.

The post Prompting is Not Clinical Practice: The Limits Of General LLMs in Healthcare appeared first on MedCity News.

The way we measure ALS progression is failing patients. We are entering a new era of ALS therapeutics but still relying on the same blunt instruments of measurement.

The post In the Absence of Objective Measures for ALS, Caregivers are the Only Witnesses. We Shouldn’t Have To Be. appeared first on MedCity News.

From Pentagon contracts to patient care, the AI leader’s policy shifts matter.

The post For Anthropic, Pragmatism Is the More Trustworthy Position appeared first on MedCity News.

If leading hospitals are using these AI tools, and the companies mention HIPAA compliance on their websites, are the consumer AI health tools also regulated by HIPAA? Do consumers share a similar relationship with these companies as healthcare organizations do?

The post Privacy Expectations in Consumer AI Tools: How Patient Use of ChatGPT Health and Claude Differs From HIPAA-Regulated Care appeared first on MedCity News.

The settlement demonstrates that enforcement risk is real and substantial, but it also highlights an opportunity. Medicare Advantage oversight does not require years of new rulemaking or experimental pilots because the technical capability to validate documentation at scale already exists and can be deployed today.

The post The Kaiser Settlement Should End the Guesswork in Medicare Advantage Oversight appeared first on MedCity News.

Technology alone won’t solve prior authorization. But refusing to adopt it guarantees the status quo: a system where insurers operate at machine speed, providers operate at human speed, and patients pay the price in delayed care.

The post Prior Authorization Is Broken. CMS’s New Rule Shows Why Regulated AI Is the Way Out appeared first on MedCity News.

The challenge for policymakers is balance: encouraging rigor without unintentionally weakening a program that now serves the majority of Medicare beneficiaries. Thoughtful rate calibration can determine whether this transition strengthens the program or strains it unnecessarily.

The post Medicare Advantage’s Discipline Era — and Why the Final Rate Notice Matters More Than It Appears appeared first on MedCity News.

At a time when 98 million prescriptions are abandoned due to cost surprises, it’s critical that all four categories of prescription drug prices are available so consumers can determine how to obtain needed medications at the lowest cost.

The post Medication Affordability Depends on Total Price Transparency appeared first on MedCity News.

We have to cover medical nutrition therapy for those who need it most, including Medicare beneficiaries. Almost all commercial payers are already doing this – the government needs to catch up.

The post Medicare Is Covering GLP-1s – It’s Time to Cover the Care That Makes Them Sustainable appeared first on MedCity News.

Executives who think ahead and ask the right questions – monthly – can make a real difference in healthcare costs.

The post Employer Health Costs: Amid Continual Increases the Cost of Doing Nothing is Too High appeared first on MedCity News.

A unified workflow for all referrals, resulting in fewer clicks and less confusion, means provider matching can be conducted based on specialty, location, insurance, and real-time availability, for an easier track to the right provider, not just any provider.

The post TEAM Success Depends on How Well a Hospital Ensures Medicare Patients Get the 30-Day Episode of Care They Need appeared first on MedCity News.

It reduced cravings, dulled alcohol’s “buzz,” and carried no risk of addiction. By every measure, naltrexone should have immediately become a major triumph. Instead, it flopped because the institutions charged with treating addiction refused to use it. Now considered a gold standard, it survived because patients and communities kept it alive.

The post The Pill Patients Saved appeared first on MedCity News.

The decision to eliminate nursing and PA degrees from ‘professional degree’ status isn’t just a financial policy choice; it’s a workforce policy choice. And, unfortunately, it’s moving in the wrong direction at the worst possible time.

The post Reclassifying Nursing Degrees Puts Us All At Risk appeared first on MedCity News.

Providers like to think they built their brand in the exam room, in the skill of surgeons or the bedside manner of nurses. And that’s definitely part of it. But your brand is also being built (or destroyed) in the billing office, on the prior-auth line, and the moment patients open their statements.

The post Turning Operational Efficiency Into Brand Equity appeared first on MedCity News.

Monopolistic practices often fly under the radar, but they take a steep toll in many areas of healthcare. Here are four types of hidden costs we need to consider. 

The post The Quiet Monopolies Driving Up Healthcare Costs appeared first on MedCity News.

The leaders who will thrive are those who can see both sides of every equation: mission and margin, empathy and efficiency, innovation and trust. They’re the ones building organizations that don’t just survive policy shifts and economic pressure, but use them as catalysts for progress.

The post We Gathered 50 Healthcare Financial Leaders. Here’s What We Learned appeared first on MedCity News.

Health plans are being asked to adapt quickly, to reconfigure technology, reimagine operations, and anticipate ripple effects that stretch across claims, member engagement, compliance, and workforce strategy.

The post The OBBBA Is Creating Uncertainty and Disruption: What Health Plans Need to Know appeared first on MedCity News.

Using Section 232 national-security tariffs on imported medical equipment risks repeating the same mistakes that have long plagued U.S. health policy: relying on blunt instruments for complex problems.

The post Trade Restrictions on Medical Equipment? Proceed With Caution appeared first on MedCity News.

Americans suffer when hospitals close, nursing homes fall below care standards and mental health services become inaccessible. Immigration should be part of the solution.

The post We’re Running Out of Healthcare Workers. A Rose Gold Immigration Card Can Help. appeared first on MedCity News.