By Bruce Japsen; Forbes ~ Jun 29, 2014

There is unprecedented demand for nurse practitioners and physician assistants as demand grows for more primary care medical providers and care coordinators to treat millions of newly insured patients under the Affordable Care Act.

A new study by physician staffing firm MerrittHawkins indicates the number of search assignments the company did for physician assistants (PAs) and nurse practitioners (NPs) jumped by 320 percent over the last two years. Only until recently, MerrittHawkins, a subsidiary of AMN Healthcare (AMN), and its affiliated companies, were focused largely on finding doctors for their clients. But that is rapidly changing, the study indicates.

By Jennifer Waters; The Wall Street Journal ~ Jun 29, 2014

If you’ve had trouble reaching a Social Security representative on the phone or waited for hours for a face-to-face meeting, you won’t be surprised to learn that the Social Security Administration, whose field offices served more than 43 million people last year, has been shuttering offices and slashing services and hours in recent years.

Since 2010, SSA has cut staff and axed 64 field offices, including 533 mobile offices, the most closures in any five-year period in the agency’s history, according to a report released June 18 by the U.S. Senate Committee on Aging.

By Jonathan Clements; The Wall Street Journal ~ Jun 29, 2014

If you listed your financial fears, you might include a repeat of 2008’s market meltdown, losing your job and getting your identity stolen. But somewhere on the list, I suspect, would be another major worry: getting sued.

That risk can loom large if, say, you are wealthy, a doctor or have your own business. By the time you’re slapped with a lawsuit, it’s likely too late to protect yourself, so you need to act ahead of time. Here are some key weapons in your “asset protection” arsenal:

By Kaitlyn Krasselt & Jayne O’Donnell; USA TODAY ~ Jun 29, 2014

Federally funded programs will add at least 2,300 new primary care practitioners by the end of 2015, but the funding for at least one of those programs is set to expire at the same time, contributing to a massive shortage of doctors available to treat patients — including those newly insured through the Affordable Care Act and Medicare.

The U.S. is expected to need 52,000 more primary care physicians by 2025, according to a study by the Robert Graham Center, which does family medicine policy research. But funding for teaching hospitals that could train thousands more of these doctors expires in late 2015.

By Jamie Hopkins; Forbes ~ Jun 25, 2014

Retirement income planning is more than just developing a steady stream of income; it also requires planning for those uncertain events that threaten a secure retirement. Aging brings with it a variety of retirement risks, including escalating health care expenses and possible long-term care expenses. While these represent significant financial risks for aging retirees, there is another risk, one often misunderstood and overlooked, lurking in the shadows — frailty risk. Frailty risk can pack a powerful punch to the security of your retirement plan.

By Russ Britt; MarketWatch ~ Jun 24, 2014

Health-care inflation has hit a low point and is poised to start rising again, but it’s unclear whether annual medical cost hikes are heading back to the double-digit increases of years past.

That’s the conclusion of a study released Tuesday by consultant PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Health Research Institute, which says medical costs will rise 6.5% this year and 6.8% in 2015. Actual medical spending growth, however, could be 4.8% when benefit plan changes are taken into account, but that figure still will be up from 2014, the report says.

By Julian Hattem; The Hill ~ Jun 24, 2014

Members of Congress on Tuesday gave a warm reception to AT&T’s $49 billion proposal to buy DirecTV and suggested regulators should let the deal proceed.

Executives from the two companies told lawmakers in the House and Senate that they need to combine in order to stay competitive with rivals such as Comcast and Verizon, and lawmakers from both parties seemed to agree.

The mild treatment stands in stark contrast to the more hostile reception given to Comcast when it recently testified about its $45 billion proposal to buy Time Warner Cable. The lack of pushback from lawmakers could signal a relatively smooth ride to approval for AT&T and DirecTV in the coming months.

By David McLaughlin; Bloomberg ~ Jun 23, 2014

U.S. regulators, armed with a year-old Supreme Court decision, are stepping up probes of pharmaceutical deals that delay the sale of generic drugs, arrangements they view as illegally hurting competition.

The Federal Trade Commission has opened new investigations into agreements between generic and brand-name drug makers that may lead the agency to sue for disgorgement of revenues, said Markus Meier, head of the agency’s health-care division. Companies under scrutiny include Forest Laboratories Inc. (FRX) and Endo International Plc (ENDP), according to regulatory filings this year.

By Julian Hattem & Kate Tummarello; The Hill ~ Jun 23, 2014

THE LEDE: AT&T and DirecTV executives will make the case to lawmakers on Tuesday that the proposed $49 billion deal to merge the two companies is necessary to stay competitive.

“This transaction is about meeting consumer demand,” AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson told members of the House Judiciary’s Antitrust subcommittee in his prepared testimony. “It’s about providing consumers with the integrated video and broadband Internet services they want, delivered over any type of device, to nearly anywhere in the country.”

By Glenn Ruffenach; The Wall Street Journal ~ Jun 22, 2014

Imagine that you’re about to accept a new job, and it’s time to talk salary. You sit down with your boss, who begins as follows:

“Actually, our payroll system is impossibly complicated. You can pick from dozens of different ways to be paid and hundreds of different start dates, and each will produce a different salary. We offer some guidance, but we’re short-handed. As such, deciding when and how to collect a paycheck is essentially up to you.