Medicare & Medicaid
News articles in this section include actions by federal regulators like the CMS and HHS, as well as information on Medicare and state Medicaid coverage and benefits.
Joe Biden ran on an expansive health care platform during his 2020 presidential campaign, with a broad array of promises such as adding a government-sponsored health plan to the Affordable Care Act and lowering prescription drug prices. Perhaps most significantly, he pledged to get control of the COVID pandemic that claimed more than 400,000 American lives ...
Large hospitals and health systems have been inconsistent in their approaches to compliance with a major new rule that requires them to post payer-negotiated rates online, and experts warn this could cause confusion for consumers. Hospitals had to post the payer-negotiated rates for 300 shoppable services online starting Jan. 1. But while some hospitals have posted spreadsheets with their ...
President Biden plans Thursday to issue a new national strategy to respond to the coronavirus pandemic and to take executive actions intended to make tests and vaccines more abundant, schools and travel safer, and states better able to afford their role in the long road back to normal life. On his second day in office, ...
CMS will raise Medicare Advantage plan payments by 4.08%, the agency announced Friday. It also signed off on its controversial proposal to complete a multiyear phase-in of a new payment methodology. The new process will adjust plan payments using diagnoses solely from encounter data—information created by healthcare providers about patients’ medical conditions and treatment.
CMS on Friday finalized a rule it estimates will save the federal government $75.4 million over the next decade in Medicare Advantage and Part D payments, with the agency crediting cost-savings to several measures enacted to curb prescription drug spending. Under the new rule, CMS expanded drug and medication therapy management programs that require Medicare ...
Victories by Democrats Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff in Georgia’s Senate runoffs Tuesday have changed the dynamics for health-care legislation. However, experts believe that small changes are more likely than major structural overhauls, according to the New York Times.
As Nevada Medicaid, the Silver State Health Insurance Exchange/Nevada Health Link, and the Division of Insurance (DOI) are preparing for the mass vaccination of Nevada residents for COVID-19, many people are asking “how will I get the vaccine?”
The Democrats’ new congressional majority puts a variety of health policy ideas suddenly into reach, even if big structural changes remain unlikely.
A closely divided Congress and a moderate Democrat in Joe Biden in the White House doesn’t bode well for a government-run single payer version of Medicare for All to emerge in 2021 despite the coming end of Donald Trump’s presidency.
Sharon Clark is able to get her life-sustaining cancer drug, Pomalyst — priced at more than $18,000 for a 28-day supply — only because of the generosity of patient assistance foundations. Clark, 57, a former insurance agent who lives in Bixby, Oklahoma, had to stop working in 2015 and go on Social Security disability and ...