November 13, 2023

Healthcare Authority Newsletter - November 2023 #2

W. Jerad Rissler

Arnall Golden Gregory LLP

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Lawmakers Reintroduce Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act

Federal lawmakers are trying again to push through immigration reform that would allow officials to recapture unused visas and reprocess them for nurses and other healthcare professionals. The Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act was reintroduced by Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) and has several other senators from both parties as original co-sponsors.

(Source: McKnight's Long-Term Care News, 2023-11-06)

The American Hospital Association has sued the federal government over the HHS Office for Civil Rights' stance on tracking technology use in healthcare. Joined by the Texas Hospital Association, Texas Health Resources, and United Regional Health Care System, AHA alleged in the lawsuit that OCR's December 2022 bulletin on the use of tracking technology HIPAA-covered entities "upsets the balance that HIPAA strikes between privacy and information sharing."

(Source: HealthIT Security, 2023-11-06)

The Biden administration finalized policy changes for Medicare reimbursements in 2024 that will cut payments to physicians by 1.25 percent compared to 2023. The 2024 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule rule includes a 3.34 percent decrease to the fee schedule's conversion factor, which is used to calculate Medicare payouts to docs.

(Source: FierceHealthcare, 2023-11-02)

Though the newly released 2024 Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) final rule did not bring good news for all in the healthcare industry, telehealth proponents garnered some critical wins. Effective on or after January 1, 2024, the PFS final rule solidified several telehealth policies, including paying telehealth providers the non-facility rate for telehealth services.

(Source: mHealthIntelligence, 2023-11-03)

To lower costs and improve billing for patients who need ground ambulance services, federal lawmakers should ban surprise bills, limit patient cost-sharing, and make bills easier to understand, according to a committee formed by Congress to explore how to tackle these issues. The 17-member committee, which met over six months, represented paramedics, emergency medical services, emergency physicians, patient advocates, state insurance regulators, and ambulance companies.

(Source: PBS, 2023-11-02)

Hospital-acquired infections, which became substantially more common during the pandemic, have returned to pre-pandemic levels, according to a new report from a patient safety watchdog group. It's key to note, researchers say, that infection rates before March 2020 were nothing to celebrate.

(Source: USA Today, 2023-11-06)

As pharmacies struggle to find their footing in a hard economy, a study out of Virginia Commonwealth University makes the argument that pharmacists could save millions of lives and cut healthcare costs significantly if they were allowed to help manage patients with chronic conditions. The study supports a long-running argument that pharmacists should be allowed to perform more care management and coordination services, and it could help the likes of Walgreens, CVS, and Rite Aid as they seek to reverse losses and redefine themselves as community healthcare hubs.

(Source: HealthLeaders Media, 2023-11-03)

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has dropped the final rule to remedy the invalidated 340B-acquired drug payment policy for calendar years 2018 to 2022. Earlier in July, the federal government agreed to pay eligible hospitals in the 340B program $9 billion to offset payment cuts that the Supreme Court had previously ruled unlawful.

(Source: FierceHealthcare, 2023-11-02)

As nursing home operators continue to decry staffing shortages as a contributor to access issues for residents, new construction of facilities to meet demand appear to be lagging as well. New construction has become especially difficult for operators trying to add Medicaid beds for low-income residents, given notoriously low reimbursement rates -- which are only now seeing a boost -- and as construction costs skyrocket and financing options dwindle, according to industry experts.

(Source: Skilled Nursing News, 2023-11-02)

A 2021 study in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association found that messages to doctors in patient portals increased by 157 percent between early 2020 and late 2021. Some doctors have begun dealing with overflowing patient emails and the time they spent on them by charging patients or their insurers for some of them (which can generate a patient co-pay), adding staff members to help with patient queries, and setting rules of email etiquette for that medical practice.

(Source: Yahoo News, 2023-11-05)

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DISCLAIMER: Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations.