Bulletin Board
Bulletin Board
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 of the Medicare ground ambulance data collection system access to hospice and certain complex palliative services for beneficiaries with end-stage renal disease and beneficiaries with cancer provider participation in Medicare Advantage networks considerations for implementing Medicare Advantage encounter data in risk adjustment the complexity of Medicare enrollment decisions for beneficiaries [...]
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 shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security that began on February 23 continues. The House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing titled “Advancing the Next Generation of America’s Health Care Workforce” to examine the shortage of resident physicians and explore ways to strengthen rural health care providers and Graduate Medical Education (GME). Watch the [...]
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 Act is deciding pay disputes between providers and insurers. The letter accuses payers of using the Independent Dispute Resolution process as a money-making tool. It also maintains that the panels deciding the disputes are favoring providers – which are winning 85 percent of the cases they consider – and are [...]
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 mostly used by other hospitals and insurers to aid in their negotiations with one another. Even when hospitals post the required data – many still do not – that data often is not presented in a way that is useful, or even comprehensible, for consumers. In addition, it can be [...]
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 percent of Medicare Advantage participants being forced to find new plans because their plan left the program, the rate of participants who need to find new plans for that reason rose to 6.5 percent in 2025 and to ten percent in 2026. This is occurring, moreover, even though the number [...]