Last year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) made Medicare hospital payment data public, followed this year by individual physician payment data. Now journalists want data on the private Medicare Advantage plans and have filed suit to get it.

The backlog of appeals of recovery audit contractor (RAC) decisions “has reached a crisis point” says the American Hospital Association (AHA) and three hospitals who have brought suit against outgoing U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius over the length of time it now takes to have an appeal of a reimbursement claim denial decided by an adiminstrative law judge.

Tuesday’s House Committee on Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health hearing on current hospital issues in the Medicare program demonstrated that there is broad agreement that last year’s “2-midnight rule” for determining hospital inpatient status in a more standardized way is not working as intended.

The Department of Health & Human Services and four other federal agencies have failed to meet incremental development requirements for their IT projects, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office.

Sylvia Mathews Burwell, nominee for Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services commissioner, pledged her support to federal healthcare reform efforts and promised Congress she would foster positive relationships with all political parties during her confirmation hearing on May 8.

The Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) has dropped its campaign for voter-passed laws that would have limited what California hospitals could charge their patients and what they could pay their executives. In return, the SEIU-UHW got the California Hospital Association (CHA) and its member hospitals to agree to a code of conduct that should make it easier for the union to organize hospital workers.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), has issued a set of final regulatory changes that it says will save healthcare providers nearly $660 million annually, and $3.2 billion over five years.

American Hospital Association (AHA) members and leaders were in Washington, D.C., this week for the AHA Annual Membership Meeting and lobbied their members of Congress on many of the top issues outlined in the association’s 91-page-long 2014 Advocacy Agenda.