Hospital finances are on the upswing, but the toll of the Change Healthcare outage is yet to be seen
Note: The second section of this article was updated where noted with a new comment from Fitch Ratings. There is reason to be optimistic about the state of hospital finances, but the impact of the Change Healthcare cyberattack has added uncertainty to the forecasts. Financial metrics for the first two months of 2024 continued to…
The FY24 HHS budget covers key programs for rural hospitals while tightening spending in some areas
The newly passed budget covering HHS during the remainder of FY24 contains notable provisions for healthcare providers. The roughly $117 billion departmental budget for the next six months was set in an appropriations bill that was passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden within hours of the March 22 expiration of funding for…
Hospitals warrant an extra boost in their Medicare payment rate next year, MedPAC says
Hospitals will get a more favorable Medicare payment increase in FY25 if Congress follows the recommendations of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC). In its semiannual report to Congress, MedPAC recommended a 1.5% bump on top of what otherwise would be provided according to statute. That would mean an estimated increase of about 4.5% for…
Navigating healthcare’s cyber crisis: HFMA’s lifeline through the Change Healthcare cyberattack
Regularly scheduled national member calls by HFMA’s Change Healthcare Business Continuity Workgroup and frequent news updates about the continuing impact of the cyberattack on hospitals and health system by senior editor Nick Hut became a lifeline for many HFMA members through mid-March. Regular news updates Hut kept members apprised of developments starting on Feb. 25…
The federal policy response to the Change Healthcare cyberattack
Note: This information is excerpted from HFMA’s running coverage of the cyberattack that disabled operations at Change Healthcare. On March 10, HHS and the Department of Labor sent a letter encouraging commercial payers to do their part to help financially strained providers nearly three weeks after the cyberattack on Change Healthcare. “Larger payers in particular…
Healthcare Blame Game: Patient Rights Advocate claims its report gets ‘independent review and validation’ – but does it?
Headline: The Sixth Annual Hospital Price Transparency Compliance ReportSource: Patient Rights AdvocatePublished: February 2024 PatientRightsAdvocate.org recently issued its sixth report scoring hospital compliance with federal price transparency regulations, and for the sixth time, its assessment conflicts with CMS’s assessment. I want to focus on a nugget we picked up on in the methodology section of the latest report,…
Responses to a new RFI will help guide regulations addressing consolidation and private equity in healthcare
The Biden administration is ramping up its assessment of how to regulate consolidation and private equity (PE) acquisitions in healthcare, issuing a request for information (RFI) from stakeholders. There is a deadline of May 6 to submit comments on the RFI, which was distributed by HHS, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade…
Healthcare Financial Management Association calls Patient Rights Advocate’s latest price transparency compliance report ‘irresponsible’
CHICAGO (March 7, 2024) – Long an advocate for consumerism and price transparency in healthcare, the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) today called the latest report from Patient Rights Advocate (PRA) “irresponsible” and “incorrect.” HFMA has maintained that to be effective, price transparency must offer clear information that is readily accessible to patients to enable them to…
Federal funding legislation would address Medicaid DSH cuts, physician payments and more
March 8 update The Senate passed the appropriations bill by a 75-22 vote, getting it to the White House for President Joe Biden to sign hours before funding for some federal departments would have expired and a big cut to Medicaid disproportionate share hospital payments would have begun. Attention now turns to HHS and other…
How HFMA worked with members through the Change Healthcare cybersecurity breach
Change Healthcare, a healthcare technology company owned by UnitedHealth Group, disclosed on Feb. 21 that it had fallen victim to a cyberattack, causing disruptions to several of its systems and services. According to a statement released on its website on Feb. 22, around noon EST, UnitedHealth Group confirmed the incident, stating, “At this time, we…