It would be understandable if some leaders of self-funded benefits plans have not devoted ample time and attention to the Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA), introduced into law in late 2021. Plan sponsors, including big and small companies, labor unions, and other organizations that provide health benefits, have had their hands full fending off challenges on ...

Toni Sherwin is actually looking forward to the procedure that will relocate her dialysis port from her chest to her arm, which will be easier to keep dry. Since she started dialysis in February — as part of blood cancer treatment — she has washed her hair in the sink and stayed out of her ...

After several business groups complained about the original timeline of the DOL’s proposed independent contractor rule, the agency is now allowing interested parties 15 additional days to comment on the rule. The U.S. Department of Labor extended the deadline from November 28 to December 13. The proposed rule, released on October 11 (and published in the ...

For 23 years, the private ambulance industry in California had gone without an increase in the base rate the state pays it to transport Medicaid enrollees. At the start of the year, it asked the state legislature to more than triple the rate, from around $110 to $350 per ride. The request went unheeded. In September, American ...

Operating costs in healthcare centers and hospitals across the country are rising amid inflationary pressures, staffing shortages and supply chain disruption, and such locations are going to have to continue implementing measures to help mitigate the highly challenging situation, according to a report from the Medical Group Management Association. While revenues vary across locations, costs rose almost universally from ...

The federal government has eased its annual punishments for hospitals with higher-than-expected readmission rates in an acknowledgment of the upheaval the covid-19 pandemic has caused, resulting in the lightest penalties since 2014. The Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program has been a mainstay of Medicare’s hospital payment system since it began in 2012. Created by the Affordable ...