Bulletin Board
Bulletin Board
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 [...]
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 prenatal care during their second trimester rate rose. These figures come from a new data brief from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. Highlights from the CDC’s findings, taken directly from the report, include: After increasing from 2016 (77.1%) to 2021 (78.3%), prenatal care [...]
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, February 23. The House Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing titled “Next Generation of Health Care Workforce” on Tuesday, February 24. View a livestream of the hearing here. The Courts A federal court has vacated the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) 2024 overhaul of the Hart-Scott-Rodino Premerger Notification Rule. [...]