The CMS Interoperability and Prior Authorization Rules
Podcast — Drug Pricing: How Are Payers Responding to the IRA?
Findings from Gibbins’ Annual Healthcare Bankruptcy Report
A Fond Farewell: Musings on the End of the Medicare Advantage Hospice Carve-In Demonstration
Video: Braidwood v. Becerra – Challenging the Affordable Care Act’s Preventive Services Coverage Provision – Thought Leaders in Health Law
Hospice and Home Health Survey Perspectives: A Conversation with Kim Skehan, VP of Accreditation at CHAP
Transparency and the Open Payments Program
Taking the Pulse, A Health Care and Life Sciences Video Podcast | Episode 173: Improving rural health care with Dr. Kevin Bennett, the Director of the Research Center for Transforming Health and the
Counsel That Cares - The Private Payer's Perspective on Value-Based Care
Podcast: Health Equity – Behind the Buzzwords – Diagnosing Health Care
A Very “Special” Episode: Amid Controversy, CMS Launches the Hospice Special Focus Program
Grace from CMS: Unexpected Good News on HIS and CAHPS Appeals
This Bandwagon Has a Broken Wheel: OIG Joins the Inconsistent Approach to Hospice GIP Claims
Behind the Curtain: Enhanced Provider Enrollment Oversight
Survey Woes: CMS Ramps Up Hospice Survey Program and Consequences
Inflation Reduction Act’s Drug Price Negotiation Provisions – What Now? – Diagnosing Health Care Podcast
A Glimpse Into the Other Side: Understanding the Perspective of Government Enforcers
I Understood There Would Be No Math: Audits, Extrapolations, and a New Set of Rules
Podcast: Inflation Reduction Act’s Drug Price Negotiation Provisions – What’s Next? - Diagnosing Health Care
Quick Takeaways From the 2024 Proposed Hospice Wage Index Rule
CMS's FY 2025 Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) Final Rule (Final Rule) finalizes several noteworthy proposals related to graduate medical education (GME) payment opportunities. Below are the takeaways from the...more
On July 31, 2024, CMS published a final rule updating the Medicare rates and policies applicable to inpatient psychiatric facilities (IPFs) under the IPF Prospective Payment System (PPS) and the IPF Quality Reporting Program...more
This is an excerpt from a recent Manatt article published on State Health & Value Strategies. Click here to download insight. On July 23, 2024, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a State Health...more
On July 10, 2024, CMS issued a proposed rule with updates to the Medicare payment rates for the Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) and the Medicare Ambulatory Surgical Center (ASC) payment system for...more
CMS's FY 2025 Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) Proposed Rule (Proposed Rule) includes several noteworthy proposals and requests for information related to graduate medical education (GME) payment policies. Below...more
Where has the time gone? We have hit the one-year mark since the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE). Yes, you read that correctly. One year! One of the long-term consequences of the PHE was the shift in when...more
On April 23, 2024, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published final rules setting forth Changes to the Medicare Advantage and the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit Program for Contract Year 2024--Remaining...more
On April 10, 2024, CMS issued its annual Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) and Long-Term Care Hospital (LTCH) Prospective Payment System (PPS) Proposed Rule for Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 (the Proposed Rule). In...more
On February 23, 2024, CMS published a final rule updating the regulatory requirements of the Medicaid disproportionate share hospital (DSH) program in response to the Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA) of 2021. The final...more
As 2023 comes to a close, I can’t help but reflect on all the regulations and policies we reviewed this year (and those that we’ll continue to handle next week before the year actually ends). There were some tasty eggs with...more
When the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE) ended in April 2023, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act’s Medicaid continuous enrollment condition also came to an end. The condition had allowed states to claim a...more
We’ve written recently about the process that states are undertaking to begin to wind down the Medicaid enrollment expansion that was necessitated by the enactment of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act in March of...more
One of the many benefits-related provisions in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 prohibits the use of “gag clauses” in group health plan agreements. Before this law, medical plan service agreements would often...more
The 2024 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule final rule, released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) earlier this month, extended certain telehealth-related flexibilities that were implemented during the early...more
The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 prohibits group health plans from agreeing to avoid making certain disclosures of provider-specific cost or quality-of-care information. This is referred to as the gag clause...more
The CY 2024 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule (Final Rule) implemented several statutory extensions to COVID-19 telehealth waivers and flexibilities, finalized proposed policies, and extended an important telehealth...more
On November 2, 2023, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued its 2024 Physician Fee Schedule final rule (Final Rule) for calendar year 2024 that will, in part, implement some of the most important changes...more
Well, it was good while it lasted. On September 27th, the Departments issued new FAQs regarding implementation of provisions of The Transparency in Coverage Final Rules (TiC Final Rules). ...more
The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (CAA), requires group health plans and insurers to annually attest that they are in compliance with the gag clause prohibition under the CAA. The first attestation is due no later...more
At the onset of the COVID pandemic in March of 2020, Congress made an important policy decision: continued access to health coverage was crucial, especially because, at the time, it was uncertain how the economy would...more
On July 31, 2023, CMS issued its final rule updating the rates and Medicare payment policies under the Skilled Nursing Facility Prospective Payment System (SNF PPS) for FY 2024 (the Final Rule). The Final Rule also includes...more
On July 25, 2023, HHS, the Department of Labor, and the Department of the Treasury (the Departments) issued proposed rules (Proposed Rules) and other information regarding health plan and issuer compliance with mental health...more
Now you know. It could not be any clearer to employers that compliance with the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 (MHPAEA) will be a—maybe the—top health and welfare benefit priority for federal...more
Plan sponsors, insurers, and third-party administrators should pay close attention to the new guidance to facilitate health plan compliance with complex nonquantitative treatment limitation comparative analyses requirements....more
On July 13, 2023, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) announced proposed Medicare payment rates for hospital outpatient and Ambulatory Surgical Center (“ASC”) services. In the Calendar Year 2024 Hospital...more