President's Proposal to Cut Drug Prices Would Reduce Provider Payments President Trump has announced a proposal to lower drug prices by tying provider payments under Medicare Part B to the lower prices in Europe instead of the congressionally-mandated average sales price plus six percent. The notice...

HHS Rule Mandates Posting of Drug Prices; Could Be a Game-Changer Are consumers ready to see the price of their prescription drugs in TV ads?  How will they react?  HHS has released a proposed rule to require pharmaceutical manufacturers to disclose drug prices in their television ads....

Major Medicare Rule Changes: Update The 2019 Physician Fee Schedule is under review at the Office of Management and Budget and could be released in its final form as early as this week.  One of its key provisions is the collapse of Evaluation and Management...

Massive Opioid Package Heads to the President The Senate last week passed the compromise 660 page opioid package by a vote of 98-1 and sent it to the President who is expected to sign the bill that aims to combat the nation's ongoing opioid crisis. H.R....

  Just 200 Hospitals Take 73% of Payment Cut under CMS' Proposed HOPD Site Neutral Rule 200 hospitals would shoulder 73% of the cuts in CMS’ proposed site neutral payment rule, according to a new study commissioned by the Integrated Health Care Coalition by Dobson DaVanzo and...

Investigation Shows Hospital Systems Use Secret Contract Terms to Dominate Market: WSJ Dominant hospital systems use an array of secret contract terms to protect their turf and block efforts to curb health-care costs, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation.  As part of these deals, hospitals...

Pharma Wins Ad Fight in Congressional Spending Package; Health Care GDP Drops House and Senate Appropriators put together the final details of a spending package that would allocate more than $850 billion for the departments of Defense, Labor, Education and Health and Human Services. The Appropriations...

More Changes Expected on Drug Prices; New Report Shows Prices are Still Rising HHS Secretary Alex Azar met with House Ways and Means Committee Republicans last week to discuss the President's plan to lower drug prices. Azar is said to have given lawmakers an update on...

CMS: Medicare ACOs Saved $314 Million in 2017 CMS has released updated data on the 472 accountable care organizations that shows that ACOs netted $314 million in savings for the government. This data comes three weeks after CMS proposed stricter regulations on the Medicare Shared Savings...

Senate-Passed $857 Billion Appropriations Package Boosts Health Spending The Senate last week passed a fiscal 2019 spending package, 85-7, that includes funding for the Departments of Defense, Labor, Education and HHS.  More than 300 amendments were filed, with more than 50 adopted by unanimous consent into the...