Bulletin Board2021-11-23T21:39:28-05:00

Bulletin Board

Bulletin Board

Federal Health Policy Update for August 28

The following is the latest health policy news from the federal government for August 22-28.  Some of the language used below is taken directly from government documents. Congress The House and Senate are in recess and will return to Washington D.C. on September 2.  Funding for the federal government expires on September 30, as will a number of health care extenders, including for telehealth flexibilities, the Acute Hospital Care at Home program, the Medicare-dependent hospital and low-volume hospital programs, and delays to reductions to Medicaid disproportionate share (Medicaid DSH) allotments. [...]

New Committee to Consider Federal Role in Health Care

The Department of Health and Human Services and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services are forming a new committee to “restore patient-driven care.” The group, to be called the “Federal Healthcare Advisory Committee,” will consist of “… experts charged with delivering strategic recommendations directly to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz to improve how care is financed and delivered across Medicare, Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and the Health Insurance Marketplace.” As described in a CMS news release, the scope of [...]

Federal Health Policy Update for August 21

The following is the latest health policy news from the federal government for August 15-21.  Some of the language used below is taken directly from government documents. Congress The House and Senate are in recess and will return to Washington D.C. on September 2.  Funding for the federal government expires on September 30, as will a number of health care extenders, including for telehealth flexibilities, the Acute Hospital Care at Home program, the Medicare-dependent hospital and low-volume hospital programs, and delays to Medicaid disproportionate share (Medicaid DSH) allotments. In the [...]

Potential Implications of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act

The publication Health Affairs has published a number of newsletters and articles about the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill and its potential implications for consumers and providers.  To learn more, see the following pieces:  “The BBB: Consumer Choice and Market Competition” “The Budget Bill’s Impact on Immigrant Access to Health Care” “The 'One Big Beautiful Bill,' Now Law, Does Not Protect Rural Hospitals” “With Budget Reconciliation Bill Enacted, Health Care Changes Loom”  “The Big Beautiful Bill: A New Era for Health Policy? w/ Katie Keith” “Trump's Deregulation Era & The [...]

Putting Some Meat on CMS’s WISeR Bones

In June, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced a new CMS Innovation Center model:  The Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction Model, or WISeR.  The idea behind WISeR is for Medicare to seek to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse in the program by working through technology companies to make greater use of prior authorization and pre-payment reviews for a small group of medical items and services that the agency considers susceptible to misuse or unnecessary use. While the program is scheduled to start next January 1 and CMS has [...]

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