Just a day after announcing three new payment proposals for 2020, CMS introduced a new pilot program for clinicians focusing on data.

CMS unleashed a slew of proposals July 29, including 2020 payment rule proposals and a requirement for hospitals to publish the payer-specific negotiated prices of healthcare services.

Pfizer, one of the nation’s largest pharmaceutical companies, is merging its off-patent and generic drug business with Mylan, a global generic and specialty pharmaceutical company based in the Netherlands. The spinoff deal is expected to close mid-2020, pending shareholder and regulatory approvals.

President Trump is reportedly working on another executive order targeting rising drug prices, according to Reuters. 

The behavioral healthcare services space is gaining traction in the larger healthcare sector, supported by higher mergers and acquisition activity year to date.

Tenet Healthcare, a Dallas-based healthcare services company that operates 65 hospitals and 500 other healthcare facilities with 110,000 employees, will spin off its revenue cycle subsidiary, Conifer, into a separate entity.

Clinical data exchange and health technology company Ciox Health has raised $30 million in equity investment in a funding round led by Merck Global Health Innovation Fund and private equity owner New Mountain Capital.

With Medicare for all on the lips of many Democratic presidential candidates and public support for universal healthcare coverage at its highest ever, concerns about healthcare usage under such a system have arisen. However, hospital use isn’t likely to rise under a Medicare-for-all plan, according to research published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.