The Latest
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Hackensack Meridian Health CEO to retire next year
The board of New Jersey's largest health system will begin a national search for its next CEO, with plans to name a successor by the end of the first quarter of 2027.
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Sponsored by ECHO
Uncovering the hidden costs of healthcare payments
The true cost of payment operations sits in four budgets. What happens when you add them up?
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Texas hospitals sue Independence Blue Cross over denied claims
Despite a $2.8 billion settlement over BlueCard program disputes, five HCA-affiliated hospitals say the program still traps them in red tape.
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A hidden tradeoff in Trump’s MFN drug deals
The government has announced pricing agreements with 26 pharma companies. But the deals could stymie other plans to lower the country’s drug spend.
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Judge approves CVS unit Omnicare’s bankruptcy plan
The plan should make all Omnicare creditors, including the Department of Justice, whole.
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Mayo Clinic, Thermo Fisher partner to create biomedical database
The health system and Thermo Fisher will create a company called Precure to generate population-scale molecular data to inform development of diagnostics, therapies and other healthcare products.
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Ascension sells ownership in Arizona Medicaid plan to Aetna
The sale lets Ascension shed insurance risk while Aetna gains a stake in a profitable plan serving high-margin dual-eligible members.
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Q&A
Why HaloMD became a target — and what its top lobbyist says critics get wrong
Patrick Velliky is confident the No Surprises Act is lowering out-of-network spending, despite research to the contrary. HaloMD’s chief external affairs officer responds to criticisms of his analysis, and of his company.
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CVS Aetna streamlines cancer prior authorizations
The insurer is bundling preapprovals for all types of cancer care into one upfront request in a bid to cut back on paperwork for doctors.
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Broadband still a barrier to telehealth adoption, study finds
About 12 million Americans can’t access telehealth because broadband is unavailable or slow, according to new research. Most live in rural areas, which experts say could benefit heavily from better access to virtual care.
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Insurance doesn’t protect US adults from medical debt, Commonwealth Fund finds
One-third of privately insured adults have unpaid debt to a healthcare provider, illustrating how medical debt isn't limited to uninsured people or those facing major medical emergencies.
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Healthcare’s agentic AI boom is outpacing governance: report
Patient safety could be at risk if agentic AI tools are rolled out without proper guardrails, Imprivata’s chief medical and growth officer warns.
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Federal watchdog accuses Humana, UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage plans of upcoding
Newly released HHS OIG audits of HumanaChoice and UnitedHealthcare of Wisconsin found both plans frequently exaggerated the health needs of their members, generating almost $180 million in overpayments over two years.
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Mental health gap widens between employed and independent physicians: survey
Employed doctors report worse well-being than independent practitioners, with workload and administrative burden driving distress.
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More health plans score 5 stars on NCQA ratings, but for-profits underperform
Eighteen plans scored a perfect 5 stars in the standards organization’s ratings for 2026, up from 11. There are no for-profits among them.
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Express Scripts targeted by Arkansas pharmacies in first-of-its-kind lawsuit
Arkansas passed a law last year giving pharmacies the authority to sue PBMs for underpayments. Twelve independent pharmacies are now the first to take advantage of the new enforcement mechanism.
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70% of Gen Z healthcare workers say they’re going to quit within the next year
Employers need to start offering more perks like education benefits in order to retain young workers, according to a survey from the Harris Poll. That’s notable for employers who need to stave off workforce shortages, one expert said.
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CMS to add more chronic conditions to ACCESS model in 2027
The Trump administration is expanding Medicare’s new technology-based payment experiment to cover more chronic conditions, including COPD, substance use disorder and tobacco cessation.
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OIG urges crackdown on equipment suppliers in Medicare Advantage
The agency says the CMS and MA organizations aren’t doing enough to screen durable medical equipment providers, especially out-of-network companies that aren’t enrolled in Medicare.
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HHS adds new IDR entity as surprise billing disputes surge
Physio Solutions, which does business as Medlitix, is the 17th company certified to settle out-of-network payment disputes under the No Surprises Act as arbiters face increasing scrutiny from researchers and lawmakers.
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2.3M young adults could lose Medicaid due to Big Beautiful Bill: study
Actual disenrollment will depend heavily on how easy states make it for young adults, who move frequently and participate in hard-to-track gig work, to prove they should stay enrolled, the Urban Institute found.
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Johnson & Johnson requires providers to share claims data to get 340B discounts
The drugmaker is the latest to impose a reporting requirement on 340B providers, saying stricter guardrails are needed to prevent duplicative discounts.
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Oracle targets nurses with latest AI tool
U.S. nurses can use Oracle’s clinical artificial intelligence agent to generate nursing summaries and search for and navigate patient charts via voice commands.
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Conifer to lay off over 1,000 workers
The layoffs come months after CommonSpirit announced it was ending its service contract early and exiting its stake in the Tenet-owned revenue cycle company.
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More than half of hospitals still not fully compliant with price transparency rules: report
A record number of hospitals are fully sharing data on the cost of their services, thanks to the CMS stepping up enforcement. But there’s still a ways to go, according to PatientRightsAdvocate.org.
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Boston Scientific fully restores operations after cyberattack
CEO Mike Mahoney gave more details at an investor conference, saying the company likely lost orders while its plants and distribution centers were shut down.