News Briefs
FTC Aims to Take Action on Non-Competes, M&A Enforcement
Healthcare lobbying organizations' efforts to carve out industry-specific exemptions in recently proposed Federal Trade Commission policies are unlikely to see their requests reflected in the regulator's final rulemaking, Commissioner Lina Khan suggested. Speaking in a keynote panel at the American College of Emergency Physicians' annual meeting, Khan outlined major proposals and enforcement actions that she described as much-needed updates to decades-old competition policy.
(Source: FierceHealthcare, 2023-10-12)
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Supply Chain, Email Attacks Creating Threats to Patient Care
Patient care is under threat from cyberattacks, particularly supply chain and business email compromise (BEC) attacks, as more and more healthcare organizations are grappling with the cost and headache associated with them, finds a new survey on healthcare cybersecurity from Proofpoint and the Ponemon Institute. The report, "Cyber Insecurity in Healthcare: The Cost and Impact on Patient Safety and Care 2023," found that 88 percent of the surveyed organizations experienced an average of 40 attacks in the past 12 months.
(Source: Healthcare Finance News, 2023-10-12)
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FDA Creates New Digital Health Advisory Committee
The United States Food and Drug Administration has created a Digital Health Advisory Committee to support the agency's efforts to explore the scientific and technical issues related to using digital health technologies. The use of digital health technologies has skyrocketed in recent years.
(Source: mHealthIntelligence, 2023-10-13)
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Three Out of Four Patients Don't Trust AI in Healthcare Setting
Artificial intelligence affects 100 percent of physicians and other healthcare providers, but three out of four patients do not trust AI in a healthcare setting. AI has become ubiquitous in healthcare, but a new survey found nearly 80 percent of patients don't know if their doctor is using it or not.
(Source: Medical Economics, 2023-10-12)
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Hospital M&A Continues to Increase Due to Financial Challenges
Financial insecurity was the driving force behind more than a third of the hospital and health system transactions announced during the year's third quarter, according to a report on recent merger and acquisition activity in the sector. Among the 18 deals unveiled from July through September, seven involved a party for which "financial distress" was a major factor, healthcare advisory firm Kaufman Hall wrote.
(Source: FierceHealthcare, 2023-10-13)
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Challenges Causing Investors to Shift Focus Away from Home Health
Amid reimbursement uncertainty in Medicare-certified home health, investors are slowly shifting focus to other home-based care types. This shift, while not a radical departure, is something stakeholders are keeping an eye on heading into 2024.
(Source: Home Health Care News, 2023-10-11)
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Report Finds Essential Hospitals in Red Due to Uncompensated Care
Essential hospitals -- more than 300 of the nation's largest safety net providers and about five percent of all U.S. acute-care hospitals -- provided more than a quarter of all charity care nationally in 2021. But charity and other uncompensated care left these hospitals in the red, according to a new report from America's Essential Hospitals. Overall, these hospitals had an average operating margin of -8.6 percent, compared with -1.4 percent for all other hospitals, based on Medicare cost report data.
(Source: Healthcare Finance News, 2023-10-16).
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Union Representation Linked to Lower Nursing Home Staff Turnover
Union representation is linked to a significant reduction in nursing home staff turnover, according to a first-of-its-kind research letter published in JAMA Network Open. Among the 17.3 percent of nursing homes that were unionized in 2021, researchers found a 3.2 percent relative drop in turnover, while in counties where more than 75 percent of nursing homes were unionized, the effect was a 17.1 percent reduction.
(Source: McKnight's Long-Term Care News, 2023-10-13)
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Study Says Independent Practices Performed Well in Patient Volume
A recent study of COVID-19's impact on patient visits contains both good and bad news for independent practices competing for patients with larger, vertically integrated practices. Researchers from George Mason University and the National Bureau of Economic Research examined changes to in-person and remote visits for patients treated by primary care physicians in independent versus integrated practices.
(Source: Medical Economics, 2023-10-11)
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California Enacts Law to Raise Health Worker Minimum Wage
Many California healthcare workers -- from nursing assistants and medical coders to cleaners and security guards -- will see at least $25 an hour starting in 2026 after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill that mandates an industry minimum wage statewide. The first-in-the-nation legislation was backed by unions that said more pay is necessary to stem the state's healthcare worker shortage and improve patient care, pointing to burnout exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
(Source: Los Angeles Times, 2023-10-13)
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