After months of controversy — and litigation — over changes to the Title X family planning funding requirements, HHS has clarified that each network needs to include a provider that offers hormonal birth control.
Category: Modern Healthcare
Blue Cross of Alabama to cease OxyContin coverage in 2019
Alabama’s largest health insurer will stop covering OxyContin prescriptions as part of an effort to deter opioid abuse.
Surgical patients receive four times the opioids they use, study shows
Surgeons write opioid prescriptions for four times as many pills as patients actually use, according to a study that found the prescription quantity, not reported pain, is the strongest predictor of opioid consumption.
CMS will tweak, not overhaul, Medicaid managed care
The CMS wants to make a series of smaller changes to an Obama-era rulemaking that revamped managed Medicaid policy two years ago. The proposals fall short of the overhaul that states expected.
Wayne State University Physician Group files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization
The not-for-profit University Physician Group, the Wayne State University School of Medicine’s faculty practice, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization and is seeking to get out of leases in suburban locations to concentrate on downtown…
Nearly all MIPS clinicians score bonuses for year 1
Of the more than 1 million eligible clinicians who participated in MIPS in 2017, 93% will receive a bonus on each of their Medicare Part B claims beginning Jan. 1, 2019. About 5% of clinicians will receive a penalty as high as 4% on their claims.
Medicaid expansion in Alaska, Montana threatened by midterm results
Midterm election results in Alaska and Montana could lead to a rollback or repeal of Medicaid expansion, which would be the first reversals of the expansion trend across the country.
Editorial: Newly divided government ensures ACA’s security for two more years
Repeal-and-replace is dead, buried, gone. Medicaid expansion passed everywhere it was on the ballot. The Affordable Care Act, with its core premise that health insurance is the right of every citizen, lives.
Azar says new mandatory oncology pay model is coming
HHS Secretary Alex Azar said the Trump administration is reversing course on voluntary payment models and said more mandatory ones are in the works, including one for cancer care.
Providers poised to pounce on midterm results for pharma beatdown
Providers can breathe a sigh of relief as a split House and Senate likely means that most of the sweeping healthcare policy changes are off the table until 2020. Plus, they may join forces with lawmakers on a common enemy: Pharma.
