Foreclosure Activity Falls Again – Analyst Blog – Indicating the marginal revival of the housing market, the foreclosure market report – released by RealtyTrac – revealed a consistent fall in the overall foreclosure activity in Apr 2013.  According to this leading online marketplace of foreclosure properties, foreclosure filings plunged 23% from Apr 2012 and 5% from Mar 2013.

Want to Improve Health Care? Spend Less on It – According to a new study of Medicaid recipients in Oregon, increased health-care spending has only a limited impact on improving people’s health. This points to an underlying reality: Hospitals and doctors’ surgeries may account for a considerable majority of health-care expenditures, but they aren’t the main factors in health outcomes. That’s true not only in the U.S. but around the world.

International Arbitration Does Over Rule National Law, Yes. – That’s The Point    However, there’s a problem with using the court system of a country when it is the government of that country which is one of the potential people being held to account. Which is why we have international arbitration

Housing Rebound Should Help Small Business – The drop in home prices has crimped some small companies’ access to credit. According to Barlow Research’s Quarterly Economic Pulse Survey, 26 percent of small businesses with between $100,000 and $10 million in annual sales used the home equity of the company’s owner or largest shareholder for business purposes in the third quarter of 2012. That fraction was nearly identical to the one recorded in 2007 when Barlow’s survey showed that 25 percent of small businesses in this size range tapped home equity for business purposes.

Expert says outlook for real estate strong in 2013 – Real estate is making a rebound, said a national expert, but there is still caution among consumers.

What Type of Case Dominates Medical Malpractice Payouts? – Medical malpractice cases seem to dominate the news and provide for titillating reading but what types of cases are the most frequent, most severe, and most costly of all medical mistakes among paid medical malpractice claims? According to a new study in the Journal BMJ Quality & Safety, diagnostic errors dominate medical malpractice payouts. The study, was conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, and was based on data from 350,706 paid medical malpractice claims reported to the National Practitioner Data Bank, a federal repository of payments made on behalf of clinicians for court judgments or settlements. The database is maintained by the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

Your Money: Starting over after divorce – A year from now, when you’re past some of this stuff emotionally and looking toward a new future, that money will still be sitting there.

Five Housing and Mortgage Trends this Spring – Homeowners who endured years of declining home values will discover that the game has changed in their favor.

Healthcare’s Big Problem With Little Data – According to Gartner, Big Data has about 2-5 years before reaching it’s ”Plateau of Productivity.” That’s the enviable point at which a technology finally delivers predictable value. The promise of Big Data, of course, is a treasure trove of high value across many industries  – including healthcare. Everything from predictive and prescriptive analytics to population health, disease management, drug discovery and personalized medicine (delivered with much greater precision and higher efficacy) to name but a few.

Cuomo: Binding arbitration bill ‘opportunity’ to help struggling municipalities – Gov. Andrew Cuomo said a bill that would help struggling local governments during binding arbitration with unions is an “opportunity” for the state to address municipalities’ fiscal grievances.

Mortgage rates fall, 15-year fixed at record – The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage fell to 3.4% in the week ended April 25, according to Freddie Mac’s weekly survey, out Thursday.

Diagnostic Errors More Common In Medical Malpractice Claims Than Surgical, Medication Errors: Study – When you think of medical malpractice, you might be inclined to think that most claims involve surgical or medication mistakes. But a new study in the journal BMJ Quality and Safety shows that for the past 25 years in the United States, diagnostic errors — meaning a diagnosis was somehow missed, or delayed — trumped these two categories in terms of patient harm, number of claims and penalty payouts.