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
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
On July 31, 2023, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced a new eight-year voluntary nationwide model – the Guiding an Improved Dementia Experience (GUIDE) Model that aims to support people living with...more
Individuals leaving incarceration have disproportionately higher rates of physical and behavioral health diagnoses and are at higher risk for injury and death compared with people who have not been incarcerated. Race...more
The May Monthly Minute examines a recent Seventh Circuit decision upholding unambiguous plan language against class action attack, the status of the federal IDR process under the No Surprises Act, and the DOL’s recent...more
On August 1, 2022, CMS issued guidance on the implementation of Section 1945A of the Social Security Act (the Act), which gives states the option to cover health home services for Medicaid-eligible children under age 21 with...more
On July 1, 2022, CMS issued a proposed rule in which the agency proposes to update and potentially liberalize the distance rules applicable to Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) as well as procedures for monitoring the...more
When the surge of COVID-19 patients threatened to strain the nation’s health care systems, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) implemented the Acute Hospital Care at Home Program, or Hospitalization at Home...more
CMS approved Georgia’s Section 1115 demonstration project to partially expand Medicaid coverage for adults not otherwise eligible for Medicaid coverage with incomes up to 95 percent of the Federal Poverty Line (FPL)—short of...more
To assist hospitals in credentialing physicians during the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Practitioner Data Bank (“NDPB”)—the federal clearinghouse for adverse action reports against physicians—has announced it is waiving...more
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), and other Federal and State agencies and...more
With crisis comes uncertainty, and even the best-intentioned regulations can leave those combating the current COVID-19 public-health emergency out in the cold. Many have asked whether the recent Declaration under the...more
Congress passed and the President signed the CARES Act on March 27, 2020. The Act impacts hospitals, post-acute providers and long term care facilities in numerous ways. The following is an outline of key provisions and their...more
On March 22, 2020, CMS announced a suite of four new tools intended to help states combat the coronavirus by allowing states to streamline enrollment into long-term care and home-based services and by expediting application...more
In light of findings from the COVID-19 outbreak at a nursing home in Kirkland, Washington, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced that it will suspend all routine facility inspections and surveys...more
On February 5, 2020, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed removing long-standing prohibitions and eligibility restrictions that had barred many individuals with End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) from...more
On November 19, 2019, CMS announced key results from the 2019 HHS Agency Financial Report, which generally provides fiscal and high-level performance data for HHS for the reporting period of October 1, 2018 through September...more
In 2014, Arizona expanded Medicaid to the new adult group. Following the expansion, Arizona submitted, and CMS approved, an 1115 waiver extension to create the Choice, Accountability, Responsibility, Engagement (CARE)...more
In March, the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC) released its biannual report to Congress. MACPAC is an independent congressional agency that advises Congress on issues relating to Medicaid. In its...more
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) recently issued guidance that starting Feb. 5, 2018, CMS will begin the process for the Low Volume Appeal (“LVA”) settlement option that CMS had announced on Nov. 3....more
Today (January 11, 2018), CMS released a Letter to Medicaid Directors outlining guidance that work requirements can be used as a basis for eligibility for certain adult Medicaid beneficiaries through 1115 waivers. Medicaid...more
On April 25, 2017, the Maine Department of Health and Human Services released for public comment a draft Section 1115 waiver application to implement new eligibility and coverage requirements for MaineCare, the State’s...more
On April 19, 2017, Wisconsin released for public comment a proposed amendment to its BadgerCare Reform Section 1115 demonstration. BadgerCare Reform currently provides coverage to approximately 150,000 childless adults ages...more
The focus is on the Marketplaces this week as CMS publishes a new Marketplace stabilization rule, even as President Trump threatens to withhold cost-sharing reduction payments to insurers. In the states, Florida announces...more
Perspectives on Health Care and Life Sciences - Medicaid has been a vital part of the American health care safety net for more than 50 years. Today, Medicaid, along with the State Children’s Health Insurance Program...more
CMS Releases Medicare Outpatient Observation Notice For Public Comment – CMS announced that the public has the opportunity to comment on the Medicare Outpatient Observation Notice (MOON). The MOON is a standardized form...more