In a final rule that CMS said would help customers “suffering from high Obamacare premiums,” the agency’s 2019 rule for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges would give states more power on how plans cover required benefits and widen exemptions to the law’s individual mandate in the final year customers can be penalized for not having ACA-compliant insurance.

In a survey of 232 chief nursing officers (CNOs) by AMN Healthcare, the vast majority said they’re experiencing at least a moderate shortage of nurses at their organizations—and 61 percent expected it would only get worse in the next five years.

Meadows Regional Medical Center in Vidalia, Georgia, serves a “very rural” area, according to president and CEO Alan Kent, DHA, just the kind of facility that has often been scooped up by larger systems in recent years. Staying independent meant the hospital needed to drive through a series of management-led initiatives on quality, patient growth and staffing levels.

A survey from Black Book Research found when healthcare organizations don’t have a master patient database across various departments, match rates when exchanging records with other health systems are much lower.

Insurance companies are beginning to decide what they’ll charge and whether to participate on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges for 2019, with Matt Eyles, the next CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), saying it’s “not a pretty picture right now” for individual market insurers.

A new bill introduced in California’s state legislature would put the state in charge of setting rates for medical services covered by private insurers, setting up a battle between consumer groups and the lobbyists for the healthcare industry.

For all the attention given to forays from Amazon, Apple and Walmart into the healthcare space, traditional providers are more worried about the continued expansion of UnitedHealthGroup’s Optum into clinical care, according to an article in Bloomberg.