The tax cut legislation signed into law late last year will help most for-profit hospitals in 2018, boosting their bottom lines at a time when several major chains are struggling with weak admissions and making acquisitions and capital investments more attractive.

A healthcare real estate company is planning a $1 billion project for a large hospital and medical offices on a site in Carmel, Indiana, with signs pointing to St. Vincent Health as the group behind the property’s development.

Under a newly proposed rule from HHS, short-term health insurance coverage that doesn’t comply with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would be more widely available, which the agency admitted may lead to insurer losses on the ACA exchanges if younger, healthier customers leave that market to buy short-term plans.

Three months after the transaction was first announced, St. Louis-based Ascension Health and Chicago’s Presence Health have signed a definitive agreement for Presence to join Ascension’s existing joint venture in Illinois, AMITA Health.

For two decades, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has supposedly been blocked from conducting research into the health effects of gun violence by a budget amendment. HHS Secretary Alex Azar has a different opinion, telling members of Congress Thursday he would allow the CDC to conduct research which doesn’t veer into advocacy.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) can move forward with a lawsuit alleging UnitedHealth Group wrongly collected more than $1 billion through Medicare Advantage by finding conditions to increase a patient’s risk adjustment payment from CMS.

The proposed merger between Downers Grove, Illinois-based Advocate Health Care and Milwaukee’s Aurora Health Care now has the blessing of the Federal Trade Commission and regulators in Illinois, leaving regulatory approval in Wisconsin as the final hurdle for creating the 10th largest nonprofit health system in the U.S.

Providers have until March 12 to apply for CMS’s new Bundled Payments for Care Improvement (BPCI) Advanced model, though the program was only unveiled on Jan. 9. Considering the details CMS has given about the model, that’s not enough time for hospitals to decide whether to participate, according to the American Hospital Association (AHA).