Kansas’s proposal to impose a three-year lifetime limit on Medicaid benefits has been formally rejected by CMS, with Administrator Seema Verma, MPH, saying the agency has to ensure the program “remains a safety net for those that need it most.”

New Hampshire will become the fourth state to impose work requirements on Medicaid beneficiaries, according to a May 7 joint statement from CMS, HHS and New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu.

At last week’s campaign-style rally in Michigan, President Donald Trump claimed he’d done away with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) when the 2017 tax bill repealed the individual mandate. But folks at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), though, would disagree. A recent report from the New York Times examines IRS's plan to send out penalty notices to more than 30,000 businesses in the U.S.

According to CNBC, Elliott Management made an all-cash deal for Athenahealth on Monday morning. Elliott’s bid is for $160 a share—a 27 percent premium to the Massachusetts-based healthcare technology company’s Friday afternoon price.

One of Massachusetts’ largest health insurers, Harvard Pilgrim, has been discussing a merger with the state’s dominant healthcare provider, Partners HealthCare, in a move that could dramatically alter the increasingly consolidated market in and around Boston.

HHS is the target of new lawsuits by a watchdog group for failing to respond to requests to release emails and online messages—one regarding Office of Civil Rights (OCR) officials and launching of its “Conscience and Religious Freedom Division,” the other over HHS communications with outside groups on changes to a federal grant program that provides birth control and other reproductive health services to low-income Americans.

If participants in the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) are required to move into a track which involves downside risk for their organization, they’re likely to leave the program altogether, according to the results of a survey from the National Association of Accountable Care Organizations (NAACOS).

Moody’s Investors Service maintained its stable outlook for the for-profit hospital industry, predicting some small growth in same-facility revenues and patient volumes while margins would remain flat. Looking ahead, however, it advises facilities to pay more attention to value-based care concepts and new technologies like telemedicine and artificial intelligence.