Regulatory burdens continue to mount for physician practices
By Dave Muoio
fiercehealthcare.com – Prior authorization, Medicare Advantage requirements and quality reporting are among the leading drivers of practices’ administrative woes, which respondents to an annual survey on regulatory burden said have worsened over recent years.
The Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), for its latest report released Thursday, polled executives from over 230 group practices, about half of which have 20 or fewer physicians and 60% of which are independent.
The lobbying group found that 40% of those practices have three or more full-time administrative staff per physician to handle these and other regulatory-related requirements.
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US adults still turn to providers for accurate health information even as AI chatbot use grows: Pew survey
By Cailey Gleeson
fiercehealthcare.com – Despite artificial intelligence becoming an increasing source of health information, 85% of U.S. adults still get information from providers “at least sometimes,” a new survey finds.
Researchers at the Pew Research Center surveyed 5,111 U.S. adults from Oct. 20 to Oct. 26 for the report. Aside from providers, researchers identified six other main sources of health information:
- People with similar health issues: 66%
- Major health information websites: 60%
- News organizations: 46%
- Government health agencies: 45%
- Social media: 36%
- AI chatbots: 22%
Healthcare providers received the best ratings for the quality of the information provided, with 55% of respondents saying information is easy to understand, 52% saying it is personalized and 49% saying it is convenient to obtain.
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Insurance and healthcare costs top US worries
insurancebusinessmag.com – Healthcare costs and rising insurance premiums have overtaken all other domestic concerns among Americans, according to a recent Gallup poll – a shift reflecting growing financial pressure on households nationwide.
The Gallup survey found that 61% of Americans say they worry a great deal about healthcare access and affordability, placing it first among 16 domestic policy areas. The issue now leads the economy by 10 percentage points – a gap that did not exist in 2025, when the two concerns were roughly tied.
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Social Risks Linked to Higher Spending on Healthcare
Edited by Manasi Talwadekar
medscape.com –
TOPLINE:
Social risk factors, particularly lack of financial resources and unmet transportation needs, were associated with an increased cost of care.
METHODOLOGY:
- Researchers conducted a retrospective study to assess the effect of various social factors on cost of care.
- The analysis included 410,624 adult patients (mean age, 51.1 years; 54.2% women; 92.0% White) enrolled in 689 family medicine clinics in Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin in 2022.
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States’ lawsuit against HHS cuts moves forward after court win
By Susan Morse
healthcarefinancenews.com – A federal judge has dismissed an attempt by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to dismiss a lawsuit brought by 19 states and the District of Columbia over the restructuring and reorganization in the department.
The states and D.C. are seeking to invalidate Kennedy’s actions, including a March 27, 2025, directive announcing the goal of “drastically reducing the number of employees” and eliminating several sub-agencies within HHS, according to the complaint.
The court had granted a request for a preliminary injunction to prevent those actions from moving forward. HHS appealed, seeking an emergency stay, and was denied in a Sept. 17, 2025, decision.
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Healthcare CIOs see AI integration as a competitive necessity
By Andrea Fox
healthcareitnews.com – There’s a significant execution gap for generative artificial intelligence in healthcare, thanks largely to electronic health record dependencies and the proliferation of third-party software integrations.
That’s according to a new report from Qventus, an artificial intelligence company. Meanwhile, other recent research, sponsored by EBSCO Clinical Decisions, a developer of decision-support technologies, finds that autonomous A tools could risk patient trust.
WHY IT MATTERS
The Qventus report, “Beyond the Pilot: How CIOs are Operationalizing AI across Health Systems in 2026,” released Thursday, aims to document the shift from AI pilots to full-scale AI integration within large-scale health systems.
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