News Briefs
Medicare Telehealth Flexibilities Extended for Two Years
Medicare telehealth flexibilities have been extended for two years, keeping reimbursement for a wide range of virtual services through the end of 2027. This allows Medicare beneficiaries to continue receiving care via telehealth rather than being limited to hospitals or clinics.
(Source: Healthcare IT News, 2026-03-02)
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Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2026 Limits PBM Power
For over a decade, pharmacy benefit managers have been in the hot seat, absorbing the bulk of Washington’s bipartisan scrutiny over rising prescription drug costs, but now the pricing pendulum is swinging back in pharma's direction. Sweeping reforms in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2026, signed into law by President Donald Trump, included changes that could upend the traditional PBM model, while also turning attention back to drugmakers.
(Source: Healthcare Dive, 2026-02-27)
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Health Care Cybersecurity and Resilience Act Moves Forward
The Health Care Cybersecurity and Resilience Act moved out of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, and will now be considered in the full chamber. The bipartisan legislation -- which was first introduced by Sen. Mark Warner, D-Virginia, and HELP Committee Chair Sen. Dr. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, and colleagues back in November 2024 -- is designed to shore up cybersecurity defenses and improve risk mitigation at healthcare organizations nationwide.
(Source: Healthcare IT News, 2026-03-02)
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FDA to Offer Bonus Payments for Quick Drug Reviews
The head of the FDA plans to start offering bonus payments to agency drug reviewers who complete their work ahead of schedule, the latest in a flurry of changes to longstanding norms and procedures. FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, MD, MPH, described the effort as a pilot program during a staff presentation, saying the first quarterly bonus payments would start going out to employees around August.
(Source: MedPage Today, 2026-02-27)
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Medicare ACCESS Health Tech Payment Model Faces Challenges
The health tech industry cheered when Medicare announced a new 10-year payment model to encourage the use of technology to treat chronic diseases. But, the lower-than-expected reimbursement rates introduce the risk of negative profit margins for model participants, according to a new research note from strategy firm Capstone.
(Source: FierceHealthcare, 2026-02-24)
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Some Nursing Home Providers Get Lifeline on Managed Care Taxes
Federal regulators have thrown nursing homes in several states a short funding lifeline, but operators will still lose millions of dollars starting next year thanks to the phaseout of provider taxes on managed care organizations. While nursing home provider taxes were spared from the nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts in last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the law still put expiration dates on the insurer version that some states have used to prop up skilled nursing payments.
(Source: McKnight's Long-Term Care News, 2026-02-24)
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CCRC Occupancy Rates Outperform Non-CCRCs, But Growth Slowing
Continuing care retirement / life plan communities continued to outpace non-CCRCs in occupancy and asking rates across all care and service segments in the fourth quarter of 2025. But that growth has slowed in recent quarters, according to the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care. The largest occupancy difference between CCRCs and non-CCRCs was in independent living (3.9 percentage points), which posted the highest occupancy rate within both CCRCs (93.3 percent) and non-CCRCs (89.4 percent).
(Source: McKnight's Senior Living, 2026-02-27)
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CMS Offers Three-Pronged Approach to Crack Down on Fraud
The Trump administration announced new steps it says are designed to crack down on fraud. The new push, which comes just one day after President Donald Trump highlighted the White House's focus on fraudulent behavior across multiple social programs, includes three key prongs.
(Source: FierceHealthcare, 2026-02-25)
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Civil Monetary Penalties May Reduce Nursing Home Margins
Civil monetary penalties can significantly reduce provider margins, increase short-term debt, and threaten fiscal stability -- especially when they strip providers of the equivalent of a full day's operating expenses or more. Those are the conclusions of a new study reviewing CMP implications in about 12,000 nursing homes over an eight-year period.
(Source: McKnight's Long-Term Care News, 2026-02-24)
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ChatGPT Falls Short on Medical Emergencies, Study Finds
ChatGPT Health regularly misses the need for medical urgent care and frequently fails to detect suicidal ideation, a study of the AI platform has found, which experts worry could "feasibly lead to unnecessary harm and death." OpenAI launched the "Health" feature of ChatGPT to limited audiences in January, which it promotes as a way for users to “securely connect medical records and wellness apps” to generate health advice and responses.
(Source: The Guardian, 2026-02-26)
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U.S. News & World Report Unveils New Hospital Compare Tool
U.S. News & World Report has launched a new Hospital Compare tool that lets patients compare the various healthcare provider options available to them. The Hospital Compare tool builds on U.S. News' library of hospital quality data and lets users create side-by-side views of up to five hospitals at once.
(Source: TechTarget, 2026-03-02)
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