If they have not done so already, hospitals should establish processes for responding to new regulations concerning status-appeal rights for Medicare beneficiaries.
The regulations have taken effect in early 2025 after being published in an October 2024 final rule. That rule stemmed from the outcome of litigation that had begun 15 years earlier.
Citing declining patient volume and reimbursement for care from commercial insurers, Heritage Valley Health System is closing its Kennedy Township hospital June 30. Among the services that will end is emergency room care, inpatient behavioral health, outpatient surgery, diagnostic imaging and lung rehabilitation. The services will be moved to the system’s other two hospitals, with Heritage Valley Sewickley being the closest at just 8 miles from the Kennedy campus. Outpatient cardiac rehabilitation services will be moved to the system's Robinson Township Medical Neighborhood building while HVHS explores partnerships that would continue the inpatient behavioral health care that is provided at the Kennedy campus, according to the health system. Negotiations with Birmingham, Ala.-based for-profit Encompass Health's 12-bed inpatient rehabilitation unit at the Kennedy hospital were continuing.
Indiana-based Beacon Health System has reached a definitive agreement to acquire the Ascension health care system in Southwest Michigan. The agreement, expected to close this summer, includes the acquisition of four hospitals, 35 outpatient clinics and an ambulatory surgery center. The hospitals being acquired are: Ascension Borgess Hospital in Kalamazoo; Ascension Borgess Allegan Hospital; Ascension Borgess-Lee Hospital in Dowagiac; and Ascension Borgess-Pipp Hospital in Plainwell.
A healthcare executive has sued John Oliver for defamation following a Last Week Tonight episode on Medicaid, in which the comedian quoted the doctor as saying it was okay for a patient with bowel issues to be "a little dirty for a couple of days". Brian Morley, MD, the ex-medical director of AmeriHealth Caritas, argues that Oliver took the quote out of context in an April 2024 episode on Medicaid.
Steep federal funding cuts have forced public health officials in one of Texas' most populous counties — Dallas — to cancel dozens of vaccination clinics and lay off 21 workers on the front lines of combatting the state's growing measles outbreak.
The FTC issued the stay in the case against CVS Caremark, OptumRx and Express Scripts in response to a motion "citing the fact that there are currently no sitting Commissioners able to participate in this matter."