Bipartisan Price Transparency Bill Passes in House
The Lower Costs, More Transparency Act has passed in the House with bipartisan support. The action is being applauded from several advocacy organizations.
House Committee Chairman Launches Investigation into PBMs, Rising Drug Costs
James Comer (R-Ky), House Committee on Oversight and Accountability chairman, sent letters to the Office of Personnel Management, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Defense Health Agency asking for documents that show how PBMs’ practices are affecting federal government healthcare programs. In addition, he sent letters to CVS Caremark, Express Scripts and OptumRx, asking them to provide information on their tactics.
Reducing Clinical and Staff Burnout with AI Automation
As technology advances, AI-powered tools will increasingly reduce the administrative burdens on healthcare providers.
House bill would cement Medicare telehealth changes
A bill introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday would permanently lift site restrictions for Medicare patients to access telehealth. During the pandemic, several restrictions on where telehealth visits could be conducted and what services were eligible were temporarily lifted.
HOPE Act could mean HIV patients’ organs no longer turned away for ‘positive-to-positive’ transplants
The House of Representatives passed the HIV Organ Policy Equity (HOPE) Act Nov. 12. Once signed into law, this would allow ‘positive to positive’ organ donations. According to the Human Rights Campaign: “Permitting organs from deceased, HIV-positive donors to be used for transplant to HIV-positive recipients has the potential to save 1,000 HIV-infected patients with […]
Apologies, sidesteps & ‘mid-November’: Recap of CMS chief Tavenner’s Obamacare testimony
Hats off to anyone who made it through all three-plus hours of the livestream of CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner’s testimony to the House Committee on Ways and Means today. Despite how long it was, little new information came to the surface as the first Obama administration official to testify on the bumpy launch of HealthCare.gov […]
Race for resolution: House plan would delay medical device excise tax to end shutdown, Senate plan would ignore it
In the snail race to end the government shutdown, House Republicans have proposed a new bill, which among other things, would delay the medical device excise tax for two years. The current proposal in the Senate doesn’t mention amending, much less repealing, the medical device excise tax. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) told the Washington Post […]
presented by
Market Trends to Watch for Health Systems and Their Specialty Pharmacies
The future looks bright for the integrated specialty pharmacy model – for health systems, providers, and most importantly, for patients.
House Republicans pass a spending bill to defund Obamacare, nation reels toward government shutdown
Republicans in the House of Representatives passed a bill this morning to defund Obamacare in a 230-to-189 vote, the New York Times reports. If no resolution happens, the government could shutdown Oct. 1–with potential for America’s first default on federal debt to follow shortly thereafter. “Defunding is clearly happening today on a spending measure that […]