About Covid-19
Biden signs bill ending national COVID-19 emergency “President Biden on Monday signed a GOP-led resolution bringing an end to the national emergency over the COVID-19 pandemic, the White House said.
The resolution passed the House despite almost 200 House Democrats voting against it after the White House said it strongly opposed the measure, though it did not threaten to veto it if the bill passed.”
As a reminder of the impact of repeal of the Public Health Emergency, see: The Impact of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency Expiration on All Types of Health Coverage
About health insurance/insurers
CMS pitches inpatient payment rule for 2024: 10 things to know A good summary of the rule. These measures are still awaiting results from the comment period.
Consistency of Physician Data Across Health Insurer Directories “In examining directory entries for more than 40% of US physicians, inconsistencies were found in 81% of entries across 5 large national health insurers. These results were driven by inconsistencies in addresses among physicians listed as practicing at multiple locations, which is concordant with prior research suggesting that most address errors stem from group practices reporting all physicians at all practice locations to insurers, irrespective of each individual physician’s practice locations.”
Reconciliation Payments in the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement [BPCI] Advanced Program and Reductions in Clinical Spending Needed for CMS to Avoid Financial Losses “This study examined the magnitude of reconciliation payments and clinical spending reductions necessary for CMS to break even in the first 4 performance periods of the BPCI-A…
This study found that reconciliation payments paid to hospitals and physician groups in the BPCI-A program were large and would require substantial clinical spending reductions for CMS to break even. Such reductions in clinical spending—ranging from 3.7% to 8.2%—are much higher than the 0.53% reductions observed in the first 2 performance periods of the BPCI-A and are generally higher than the 3.8% reductions observed in evaluations of bundled payments for joint replacement. Reconciliation payments were too high because target prices were miscalibrated and too easily achieved. [Emphasis added] Reconciliation payments may have been relatively higher in performance period 3 due to decreases in utilization of postacute care during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
About hospitals and healthcare systems
FYI:
25 hospitals where charity care exceeds tax breaks
25 hospitals where charity care falls behind tax breaks
About pharma
DOJ to appeal major abortion pill ruling, and HHS won't ignore it after pleas from Democrats “The Biden administration will appeal a landmark ruling that suspends Food and Drug Administration approval of the abortion drug mifepristone, but it will not heed calls to ignore the ruling entirely.
The Justice Department’s decision Monday comes after a Texas judge threw approval of the more than 20-year-old drug into doubt on Friday. A conflicting ruling issued later that night from a judge in Washington sought to preserve the drug’s approval for more than a dozen blue states.”
About the public’s health
Electronic cigarette menthol flavoring is associated with increased inhaled micro and sub-micron particles and worse lung function in combustion cigarette smokers “Our results reveal an association between enhanced inhaled particle due to menthol addition to ECs and worse lung function indices. Detailed causal relation remains to be demonstrated in future large-scale prospective clinical studies.”
About healthcare IT
CommonSpirit Health revealed that cybersecurity breach was much larger than initially thought, reaching 100 facilities in 13 states “More than half a year after CommonSpirit Health revealed that it has been the target of a ransomware attack from September 16 to October 3, 2022, the health system informed the public that the attack was larger than initially announced.
Over 100 current and former CommonSpirit facilities located in 13 states may have been touched by the attack, the Catholic system said last week. The statement is a notable expansion from the facilities located in Washington state, Tennessee and Nebraska that were initially believed to be victims of the attack.”