While the proposed rule for the second year of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA)’s Quality Payment Program (QPP) earned mostly praise from the healthcare industry, the finalized rule earned a mixed reaction from groups alternating saying it’ll burden providers and it’s allowing too many physicians to avoid the program altogether.

Conservative donors who backed efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) may have found a new health policy cause: making it easier for veterans to see private hospitals and physicians instead of going to Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) facilities.

The All of Us Research Program, established by the White House in 2015, has selected Fitbit as the wearable that will be used to collect data that will be used in subsequent research on preventing diseases based on individual characteristics.  

Two state ballot referendums on Nov. 7 dealt with healthcare issues, with voters in Maine approving an expansion of Medicaid eligibility while Ohio voters soundly rejected a measure to tie pharmaceutical prices paid by the state to rates paid by the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (VA).

States will have more flexibility to change their Medicaid programs, CMS Administrator Seema Verma said in a speech that criticized the Affordable Care Act (ACA)’s expansion of eligibility and called opposition to work requirements for able-bodied beneficiaries “soft bigotry” from the last administration.

The first few days of open enrollment on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges saw a record number of people signing up for coverage, according to The Hill.

CMS has finalized the rule for the second year of Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act’s (MACRA) Quality Payment Program (QPP), raising the low-volume threshold for the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) but not allowing clinicians the option to participate if they don’t meet the minimum requirements.

CMS released its final hospital outpatient prospective payment system (OPPS) rule for 2018, which included a significant cut to drug payments to hospitals which use the 340B drug discount program. The result was the quick threat of a lawsuit from three major medical groups.