The US Department of Veterans Affairs has restarted a project to implement Oracle electronic health records in its hospitals after the project was suspended in 2023. The new payments relate toa $300 million agreementfor optimization of the electronic health records (EHR) management system anda $29 million dealfor identity and access management support and enhancement, published...
In 2022, the Biden Administration enacted the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a sweeping piece of legislation aimed at reducing healthcare costs. Among its most significant provisions was the ability for Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, a move that was hailed as a potential game-changer for lowering healthcare expenses. While the immediate effects of the IRA’s...
Though not quite reaching 2023’s highs, healthcare bankruptcies remained elevated across 2024 with a six-year high among physician practices as well as “the largest hospital sector bankruptcy by far in the last 30 years,” according to new research from Gibbins Advisors. The restructuring advisory firm’s Thursday report outlined 57 Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings among...
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) will recommend Congress bump Medicare pay rates for hospitals in 2026. In a public meeting held Thursday, the group’s commissioners voted in favor of draft recommendations to increase general acute care hospitals’ base payment rates by the amount specified in current law plus an additional 1%. Such an increase would apply to inpatient and...
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is beginning early-stage planning to deploy the Oracle Health-based Federal Electronic Health Record (EHR) system to four Michigan facilities — Ann Arbor, Battle Creek, Detroit, and Saginaw — in mid-2026. This decision comes after VA has been working to make improvements to the EHR system during a pause in deployments announced in April 2023. These improvement efforts...
With large data breaches increasing in healthcare, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is proposing tomodify the HIPAA Security Rule to require health plans, clearinghouses and most providers and their business associates to strengthen cybersecurity protections for individuals’ protected health information. This marks the first time HHS has sought...
HHSissueda new rule Dec. 11 in a bid to make sharing health information easier and more secure. This rule is part of the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA), which aims to create a unified way for healthcare organizations to share electronic health information while keeping it private and secure.
It has been nearly a...
A team of researchers at Brown University, writing in the December issue of Health Affairs, is arguing that state employee health plans could institute payment caps that would save a great deal of money while not harming hospitals. Often the largest purchaser of commercial health insurance in their state, state employee health plans possess a unique opportunity to implement cost...
A group of legislators is calling on the Department of Justice to dig into whether pharmacy benefit managers played a role in the opioid epidemic. The representatives point to recent reports that suggest the three largest PBMs worked together to funnel patients to OxyContin prescriptions. "Recent reports, including confidential files and information from CVS Caremark,...
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