Congress Eyes Reimbursement Boost for Rural RPM Programs
While adoption rates are growing for remote patient monitoring (RPM), rural and remote providers are holding back, due in large part to low Medicare reimbursement. A new bill before Congress aims to change that.
A Crucial Year for Value-Based Care in Medicaid
This year marks a pivotal moment for Medicaid, its enrollees, and the clinicians who serve them. The joint federal-state program is facing significant challenges from the current Trump administration, which has proposed substantial budget cuts to Medicaid for both fiscal and political reasons.
An Unsettled Healthcare Environment Puts Focus on Enterprise Risk Management
Even during “normal” times, predicting the future is a dicey business. The breakneck pace of actions taken in the first weeks of the Trump presidency only makes every glass ball more opaque and puts the onus on healthcare leaders to sharpen their enterprise risk management practices for the challenges ahead.
HHS Layoffs to Further Challenge Provider CEOs, Organizations
The Trump administration’s decision to lay off 10,000 full-time employees, consolidate HHS from 28 divisions to 15, and combine multiple agencies into a unified entity will have major ripple effects that impact hospitals and health system CEOs.
What’s Lost: Trump Whacks Tiny Agency That Works to Make the Nation’s Healthcare Safer
On April 1, the Trump administration slashed the organization that supported that research — the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, or AHRQ — and fired roughly half of its remaining employees as part of a perplexing reorganization of the federal Health and Human Services Department.
Another Reprieve? Proposed Budget Bill Includes Telehealth, HaH Extensions
According to the American Telemedicine Association and several others, the proposed Continuing Resolution unveiled on March 8 keeps in place pandemic-era waivers on key telehealth coverage and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Acute Hospital Care at Home program through September 30.
Report: CDC Ordered to Stop Working With WHO
U.S. public health officials have been ordered to stop working with the World Health Organization (WHO) immediately, according to the Associated Press.
Prescribing Pullback: Telehealth Advocates Ask Trump to Withdraw DEA Proposal
Healthcare executives who have lobbied the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to create a special registration for providers to prescribe controlled medications via telemedicine are now asking the Trump Administration to withdraw that proposed rule.
Should Nurse Practitioners Read X-Rays?
The CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health submitted a request for information regarding the B Reader Program from interested parties to determine whether they should allow nurse practitioners and physician assistants to become B Readers.
OSHA Terminates COVID-19 Rulemaking
On January 15, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) terminated its healthcare COVID-19 rulemaking (90 Fed. Reg. 3665).