Your favorite payer’s website just got a much needed face-lift over the weekend. That’s right; the new and improved CMS.gov has the look and feel of www.healthcare.gov with the same information as before in a more cornea-friendly format and, in some cases, a new location. Medicaid now also has its own site housed at www.medicaid.gov.

CMS said the site changes are a direct reflection of user comments and complaints. NOTE: The site does have a few bugs, as most new sites do, and has been crashing, at least on this reporter’s browser, all day. But CMS is sure to work out the kinks soon.

You’ve seen more patients on high-deductible plans and you can expect that trend to continue, according to a wide range of media sources. In just one year, from 2010 to 2011, the percent of companies offering high-deductible plans went from 23% to 32%, one survey found. The survey, which only looked at companies with 500 or more employees, also found that 13% of insured employees were enrolled in a high-deductible plan as of 2011, compared to 3% in 2006.

CMS Administrator Donald Berwick, M.D., will officially resign his post effective Dec. 2, CMS says. News of the departure leaked Nov. 3 before CMS’s formal announcement. Berwick will be succeeded by Marilyn Tavenner, currently CMS’s principal deputy administrator who has previously acted as administrator. Berwick’s term was supposed to last through Dec. 31 and he was up for Congressional confirmation in January. 

CMS has made good on its promise to publish a list of all providers who have received a revalidation letter. The first wave of revalidations was sent out in late September, and consisted of 89,000 providers nationwide. This most recent list includes 105,053 providers, and was uploaded Nov. 17 on the CMS website.

After months of debate, the FDA is officially revoking its approval of Avastin as an effective breast cancer treatment, according to a Nov. 18 news release.

The embattled cancer drug failed to show its benefits outweighed risks, including high blood pressure and heart failure, or improve quality of life in clinical trials, the FDA cites in the release.