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DeBrunner & Associates is pleased to welcome our newest client:  AristaCare Health Services, a provider of post-acute rehabilitation, memory care, and long-term-care services based in Cranford, New Jersey. Welcome!

Last week’s elections will bring to office in January a new majority party in the House and changes in the Senate as well. Changes in leadership are coming in all of the House committees with jurisdiction over health care matters:  Energy and Commerce, Ways and Means, Appropriations, and Oversight and Government Reform.  New leadership may be coming to the Senate Finance Committee as well. Kaiser Health News has published a look at the relevant committees, their likely new leaders, and the priorities of those new leaders.  Find that report here.

Under a new proposal by North Carolina’s state treasurer, health care for state employees could be reimbursed based on a percentage of Medicare rates. North Carolina’s State Health Plan insures more than 700,000 state employees and public school teachers, and under the proposal, doctors, hospitals, and other providers that participate in the plan would agree to accept an as-yet unstated percentage of Medicare rates.  The state treasurer estimates that this approach would save the State Health Plan $300 million a year and save plan participants another $60 million a year. According to North Carolina Health News, the state’s hospitals are [...]

Eight percent of American hospitals – 450 of them – are at risk of closing in the coming years and another 10 percent, or 600 hospitals, are considered “weak” according to a new analysis performed by Morgan Stanley.  The signs of these problems include sinking margins, declining occupancy and revenue, and government and insurer policies that enable patients to receive certain services at facilities other than hospitals, as they did in the past. The largest concentrations of at-risk hospitals can be found in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Kansas, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania. Learn more about the Morgan Stanley analysis in this Bloomberg [...]

How has Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh ruled in health care cases that have come before him? In a new review, the Commonwealth Fund examines Judge Kavanaugh’s past opinions on cases involving the Affordable Care Act, abortion and contraception, and Medicare entitlement. It also examines how Judge Kavanaugh approaches adjudicating the cases that come before him and his views on precedent, procedure, and executive and judicial authority. Learn more about the man who could soon join the Supreme Court in the Commonwealth Fund article “Examining Supreme Court Nominee Kavanaugh’s Health Care Opinions.”

Health care providers that fail to join the provider networks of Missouri Medicaid managed care plans will see their Medicaid payments cut 10 percent by the state under a new state policy. The purpose of the policy, according to the state, is to encourage hospitals and physicians to join the provider networks of three managed care plans that serve more than 700,000 residents of the state.  Providers, on the other hand, say this policy will discourage them from serving Medicaid patients at all and will detract from their ability to negotiate reasonable rates with the state’s three Medicaid managed care [...]