Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tennessee, has said he’s abandoning efforts to push a bipartisan bill meant to stabilize the Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges, putting the blame on Democrats’ resistance to making changes to the law. With no congressional action likely this far into an election year, exchange insurers are requesting some eye-popping hikes for 2019 premiums.

May 9 marks 100 days since Alex Azar was sworn in as the second HHS Secretary under President Donald Trump. Judging by what lobbyists, policy experts and Democrats said to Axios, he’s seen in a more positive light than his predecessor Tom Price, MD.

“For the first time, CMS is organizing and focusing our efforts to apply a rural lens to the vision and work of the agency,” CMS Administrator Seema Verma, MPH, said in a statement.

Change Healthcare has announced a collaboration with Adobe Systems and Microsoft to develop a more comprehensive patient engagement tool for providers to build patient relationships through technology.

In her remarks at the American Hospital Association’s annual meeting, CMS Administrator Seema Verma, MPH, offered some criticism of current accountable care organizations (ACOs) that haven’t taken on downside risk, hinting those payment models may be targeted by CMS regulations.

President Donald Trump is looking to a rarely-utilized process called “rescission” to cut $15 billion in federal spending he already signed into law earlier this year—with much of the reductions coming from programs like the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

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.”

Providing emergency department (ED) clinicians with feedback on their opioid prescribing led to a significant decrease in future prescriptions, according to a study published April 2 in Academic Emergency Medicine.