President Trump's new hospital price transparency executive order directs federal agencies to enforce regulations that the president put into effect in his first term. Trump's action reflects a step toward enforcing long-ignored regulations, ensuring patients have access to relevant pricing information to make informed healthcare decisions. Without strict enforcement and meaningful penalties, hospitals will continue to resist transparency in the cost of services provided, preventing a competitive, value-driven healthcare marketplace.
Since the start of the year, Medical Properties Trust shares have jumped more than 50%. That's despite the bankruptcy filing in early January of yet another of its biggest tenants, looming deep cuts to Medicaid funding that are poised to devastate hospitals that predominantly treat elderly and lower-income patients, the saber-rattling rhetoric against MPT of politicians, sell or hold recommendations from 11 out of 12 of the equity analysts, and a credit rating deep in junk territory that ratings agencies have downgraded twice over the past year.
An Indiana hospital seeking to take over its rival won a reprieve when lawmakers watered down a bill that threatened the proposed deal. But now it faces a likely showdown with the state's new governor.
A federal effort to increase oversight of hospice care has been put on hold by the Trump administration, resetting efforts to root out fraud and abuse in an industry that receives more than $25 billion from Medicare annually. Federal officials in recent years have ramped up efforts to identify instances in which hospice operators fraudulently bill the government or enroll patients who aren't terminally ill. But the new administration has halted a Biden-era plan for noncompliant hospices to take corrective action or risk being kicked out of Medicare.
A major hospital chain owner which operates specialty hospitals in the Midwest and South has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Landmark operates six facilities across Florida, Missouri and Georgia. The company filed for bankruptcy in Florida on March 9 with debts of between $50 million to $100 million.
Mass. General Brigham, the largest private employer in Massachusetts, is conducting a second round of layoffs as leaders work to address a huge budget deficit. The hospital group, which employs more than 82,000 people, is in the process of cutting hundreds of jobs as it works to address a $250 million budget shortfall.