Bulletin Board
Bulletin Board
Federal Health Policy Update for July 28
The following is the latest health policy news from the federal government for July 21 -28. Some of the language used below is taken directly from government documents. Medicare Payment Regulations CMS has published a final rule to update Medicare payment policies and rates under its inpatient rehabilitation facility (IRF) prospective payment system and IRF quality reporting program for FY 2024. The final rule includes a 3.4 percent rate increase and changes in the outlier threshold, the case-mix-group relative weights and average length of stay values, and the wage index. [...]
Administration Seeks to Improve Access to Mental Health Care
New regulations introduced by the Department of Health and Human Services would require health insurers to improve access to mental health services for their members. The newly proposed regulations seek to strengthen the 2008 Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act by requiring health care payers to analyze their members’ access to mental health services by looking at their medical management processes, the adequacy of their provider networks, and the rates they pay those providers. This, HHS believes, would help ensure that insured individuals’ access to such services is as [...]
HHS Review Questions Medicaid Managed Care Plans
Medicaid managed care plans may be shortchanging their members on care – or so suggests a new review by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Inspector General. According to the OIG, the Medicaid managed care plans it audited in 37 states rejected one out of every eight requests for prior authorization, with more than ten percent of the audited plans denying prior authorization requests more than 25 percent of the time. Such findings, the OIG concluded, “…raise(s) concerns about health equity and access to care for [...]
Some States Struggling With Medicaid Eligibility Redeterminations
As many as 12 states have struggled to comply with federal guidelines for redetermining eligibility of their Medicaid population – enough so that the federal government has had to intervene. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has reportedly halted Medicaid eligibility redeterminations in six states since April and worked closely with six more after concluding that they were not complying with its guidelines for how to go about redetermining the eligibility of the nearly 94 million Americans who were on the Medicaid rolls when the COVID-19 public health emergency [...]
Federal Health Policy Update for July 20
The following is the latest health policy news from the federal government for March 13-16. Some of the language used below is taken directly from government documents. Congress Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, has introduced a bill, the “Primary Care and Health Workforce Expansion Act.” The bill would: Increase funding for community health centers by $65 billion over five years, fund the National Health Service Corps at $8.3 billion over five years, and provide $250 million for HRSA coordination for [...]