News Briefs
2024 Healthcare Bankruptcies Down, Still Second Highest on Record
Senior care, pharmaceutical companies, and physician practices led healthcare provider bankruptcies in 2024 despite an overall dip in Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings, according to a new report from Gibbins Advisors. The 2024 report identified 57 healthcare provider bankruptcy filings last year, representing a 28 percent decline from 79 in 2023. However, the number of healthcare bankruptcy filings was still the second-highest level Gibbins Advisors has recorded in the last six years (2019-2024), behind 2023's filings.
(Source: Tech Target, 2025-01-29)
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Two Key SNF Updates Put on Hold Amid White House Freeze
Two key updates to consumer-facing metrics that skilled nursing operators had been expecting appear to have been blocked by a White House freeze on healthcare communications. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services typically updates data on its Care Compare site on the last Wednesday of the month, but that did not happen in January. Also scheduled for that day was a long-anticipated "refresh" of four quality measures that have been frozen since last April.
(Source: McKnight's Long-Term Care News, 2025-02-03)
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Legislation Aims to Increase Physician Pay by 6.62 Percent
A bipartisan group of representatives introduced a bill that would offset and exceed a pay cut for doctors that went into effect at the top of this year. The proposed adjustment would take effect April 1 and run through the rest of 2025, thereby leaving the year's 2.83 percent Medicare pay cut in place for services furnished from January to March, but services furnished after the cutoff would see a 6.62 percent increase -- offsetting the pay cut, adjusting for inflation, and prorating the first three months of pay cuts.
(Source: FierceHealthcare, 2025-01-31)
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Health Data Privacy Law Approved by New York Legislature
The New York State Senate and Assembly passed the New York Health Information Privacy Act, a health data privacy law that aims to govern companies that sell and collect health data. If signed into law by the governor, it would provide additional rights to consumers surrounding the sale of their private health information, while establishing strict noncompliance penalties for regulated entities.
(Source: Tech Target, 2025-01-29)
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Independent Pharmacists Say They Won't Stock Negotiated Drugs
The National Community Pharmacists Association has submitted comments to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services warning that more than 90 percent of independent pharmacies may decide, or have already decided, to not stock drugs in the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program because of the potential financial losses. In its comments, NCPA cited a recent national survey of independent pharmacists that found 93.2 percent of respondents have already decided to not stock the drugs in the program, or they are considering not stocking them.
(Source: Healthcare Finance News, 2025-01-31)
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Telehealth Companies Spending Millions on Television Ads
A group of direct-to-consumer telehealth companies have become omnipresent across just about all media formats, seeking patients interested in their low-stigma, low-fuss, low-touch, high-convenience health products. Thirteen telehealth entities spent a combined $111 million in 2023 on television ads, more than double the sum in 2019, according to an analysis from iSpot.tv, a television ad-tracking company, provided to KFF Health News.
(Source: KFF Health News, 2025-01-30)
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Hospitals File Motion to Intervene in 340B Drug Lawsuit
The federal government could be getting more help in defending its interpretation of a decades-old drug discount program in court. A group of hospitals filed a motion to intervene as defendants in Johnson and Johnson's lawsuit against the government for preventing the drugmaker from changing how it divvies out savings in the program, called 340B.
(Source: Healthcare Dive, 2025-02-03)
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CMS May Revamp Drug Price Negotiations Under Trump Admin
The Trump administration's Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has signaled that it will be revamping the process of negotiating prices for certain Medicare Part D drugs with input from external stakeholders, sparking some alarms from Democrats who support the program. The program is a statutory requirement of 2022's Inflation Reduction Act and builds on the 10 drugs subject to negotiations during the inaugural 2024 year.
(Source: FierceHealthcare, 2025-01-30)
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CMS Seeks to Boost Scrutiny of Nursing Home Third-Party Pay
A soon-to-expand prohibition on nursing homes' use of third-party financial guarantees could lead to more operators using lawsuits to collect as residents' unpaid debt becomes a bigger financial concern. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has long forbidden the use of such third-party guarantees in nursing homes, but the agency now wants surveyors to scrutinize compliance more intensely, possibly further impeding collections related to care already delivered.
(Source: McKnight's Long-Term Care News, 2025-01-28)
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Health Supply Chain Costs to Rise 2%, Pharmacy Costs by 3.8%
Health supply chain costs and pharmaceutical expenses are projected to rise modestly between July 2025 and June 2026, according to new research from healthcare services company Vizient. Pharmacy spend will rise 3.8 percent, driven in part by increased demand for specialty medications, while supply chain costs will rise by approximately two percent during the period, following higher prices for raw materials, increased freight and shipping costs, and tariffs on medical-surgical products, according to the report.
(Source: Healthcare Dive, 2025-02-03)
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Direct Primary Care Becoming Increasingly Popular Option
Direct primary care is an increasingly popular healthcare option, and experts say it may become more common under health policy changes that President Donald Trump's administration is expected to pursue. Some doctors and patients say they love how much simpler it is to get routine medical care and how some services can be cheaper, but public health experts caution not to think of direct primary care as a replacement for insurance, because the monthly fee covers nothing beyond visits.
(Source: Dayton Daily News, 2025-02-03)
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