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Maryland hospitals collectively generated more than $100 million in Medicare savings in the first year of an experimental payment system being watched closely by the federal government as a possible national model for reducing health care costs. The state's medical institutions agreed last year to a five-year agreement with the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. It drastically changed the way they did business and aimed to curb costs, in part by reducing expensive hospital stays and handling more patient care at the doctor's office. (McDaniels, 6/29)

New York officials say $7.3 billion is going to 25 networks of health care providers statewide to help overhaul the delivery of care and cut unneeded hospital visits. Meanwhile, state health officials say average spending for the state's Medicaid patients has declined to $8,233 annually while enrollments rose by 500,000 to nearly one-third of the state's 19 million people. (6/29)

A wide range of legislative priorities that failed to clear both chambers of the General Assembly before the June 3 end of the regular session won final approval early Tuesday as part of a massive budget implementation bill. The 686-page everything-but-the-kitchen-sink bill also includes several controversial new provisions, including a plan to fund pay increases for nursing home workers but give the bulk of the money to those at unionized nursing homes, and one that expands the governor’s authority to hire and fire workers in several types of jobs. (Levin Becker, Pazniokas, Phaneuf, Rabe Thomas and Spiegel, 6/29)

Citing a “significantly underfunded” budget for the new fiscal year, the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services has told Medicaid providers they won’t be seeing the usual rate increases for inflation. In a public notice posted Monday morning, DHSS filed emergency regulations to freeze rates that customarily rise a percentage point or two every year. (Andrews, 6/29)

What started as a toothache from a lost filling became a raging infection that landed Christopher Smith in the University of Louisville Hospital emergency room, then in intensive care on a ventilator and feeding tube. "It came on so quickly and violently. I was terrified," said Smith, 41, of Jeffersonville, Ind., who lacked dental insurance and hadn't been to a dentist for years before the problem arose this month. "I had no idea it could get this serious this quickly." (Ungar,6/29)

A prominent Kentucky health-care company that once featured University of Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari in its TV ads filed for bankruptcy protection in the face of accusations from Medicare officials that it paid illegal kickbacks to doctors. (Stech, 6/29)