Rural Health Transformation Plans Face Pushback
In states across the country, legislators, hospital and health care groups, and others are objecting to the plans their state governments submitted to the federal government for how they would like to spend Rural Health Transformation funds – plans that [...]
States, Hospitals, Patients Brace for Big Beautiful Bill Effects
The effects of last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act will soon be felt by states, providers, and consumers and some of them are already preparing for the impact. States face an expected loss of $664 billion in Medicaid money [...]
MedPAC Posts Agenda for March 2-3 Meeting
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission has posted the agenda for its next public meeting, which will be held on Monday, March 2 and Tuesday, March 3. The subjects scheduled for consideration during MedPAC’s next two-day session are: mandated report: Assessment [...]
Federal Health Policy Update for February 26
The following is the latest health policy news from the federal government for February 20-26. Some of the language used below is taken directly from government documents. Congress Both chambers of Congress are in session this week and next. The partial [...]
Groups Protest No Surprises Act Implementation
A group of more than 60 health care payers, employer groups, and others have written to the departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and the Treasury to protest how the Independent Dispute Resolution process created under the No Surprises [...]
Price Transparency Not Living Up to Objective – Yet
The requirement that hospitals post transparent information about their prices is not yet leading consumers to do more price shopping before obtaining care. Instead, to the degree that hospitals are fulfilling the requirement at all, the data they share is [...]
Medicare Advantage Musical Chairs Continues
Even as the number of seniors enrolling in Medicare Advantage plans rises every year, the program’s stability is threatened by the withdrawal of those plans from the program. According to a new JAMA Network analysis, after years of just one [...]
Rate of Timely Prenatal Care Declines
The rate at which pregnant women start receiving prenatal care during their first trimester declined between 2021 and 2024, as did the rate of pregnant women who received late or no care. Meanwhile, the rate at which pregnant women initiated [...]
Federal Health Policy Update for February 19
The following is the latest health policy news from the federal government for February 13-19. Some of the language used below is taken directly from government documents. Congress Congress is not in session this week and will return on Monday, [...]
Feds Taking Another Shot at 340B Changes
Only a week after a federal court rejected for a second time its attempt to introduce a new approach to administering the 340B Drug Pricing Program, the Health Resources and Services Administration is going back to the drawing board and [...]
