Policy and Legislation

It's been a long time coming, but late Friday, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released the final rule for the Physician Payments Sunshine Act.

Leaders of healthcare policy encouraged the industry to speed up the rate of change during a keynote address at the National Health Policy Conference Monday in Washington, D.C.

I was only a little bit surprised to read The Doctor’s Office as Union Shop, which blames the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for ushering in “a potentially radical factor in the transformation of health care –the doctor as union worker.”

Carolyn Clancy, MD, will step down as director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) after 10 years leading the organization.

For the third time since it first introduced its plans to require women's preventive health services including coverage for contraception under employer-sponsored health plans, the Department of Health and Human Services on Friday announced a modified set of proposed rules aimed at allaying the objections of religious organizations to the mandate.

On Thursday, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced it had selected more than 500 healthcare organizations to participate in its Bundled Payment for Care Improvement initiative, a program to test how bundling payments for episodes of care can improve care coordination and lower overall Medicare expenditures.

When Congress passed the early morning fiscal cliff compromise there was largely relief across the country. Unfortunately, when it comes to brinksmanship politics, the fine print can get a bit messy and there is often collateral damage and the healthcare sector took a couple of those hits.

Despite the fact that most discussions about health information exchanges focus on technology, the real force that will drive them forward is a solid return on investment for healthcare providers, said a group of experts at a joint hearing of the federal advisory Health IT Policy and Standards committees on Jan. 29.

On January 22, 2013, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published a proposed rule designed to provide states with additional flexibility in administering their Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and Affordable Care Act (ACA) Exchange programs.

The Green Mountain Care Board (GMCB) recently outlined its second year of work as it helps guide the state toward a publicly financed single payer healthcare system by 2017.