When the largest payer defines health equity, people listen, but convincing clinical and policy leaders to develop strategies and make changes requires data, lots of it.
The Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services' (CMS) plan focuses on addressing inadequate sociodemographic and social determinants of health (SDOH) data because...
Last Friday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published the Roadmap for Behavioral Health Integration, which aims to boost pay parity and support for mental health care and substance abuse prevention services.
The HHS Roadmap was developed by the HHS Behavioral Health Coordinating Council and incorporated...
The National Academy of Medicine (NAM), an independent organization that serves as a national adviser on health and medicine with the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering, released a Special Publication on the lessons learned and path forward for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) and...National News
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a Request For Information (RFI) seeking public input on accessing healthcare and related challenges, understanding provider experiences, advancing health equity, and assessing the impact of waivers and flexibilities provided in response to the COVID-19 Public Health...
The non-profit healthcare accreditation group for more than 22,000 providers across the country, the Joint Commission, has established new accreditation standards to improve health equity within healthcare organizations. The standards will apply to hospitals, critical access hospitals, primary care providers and ambulatory surgical...
Nearly 1,400 community health centers across the country received a total of $90 million in American Rescue Plan (ARP) funding to advance health equity through better data collection and reporting.
The awards are on top of the $7.6 billion in ARP funds provided to community health centers to strengthen the health center workforce,...
Last week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released a Request for Information (RFI), seeking comment on ways to improve Medicare Advantage and make the program more equitable, affordable and sustainable.
Medicare Advantage (MA) has been under great scrutiny lately, for policies on prior authorization, the adequacy...
Employer-sponsored insurance is the backbone of the American healthcare system. It pays for the majority of medical needs for employed adults and their families and has been lauded as a necessary negotiator for patients and providers, in order to deliver high-quality, patient-specific care. But according to a new study,...CMS Rules
The rule updates Medicare fee-for-service payment rates and policies for inpatient hospitals and long-term care hospitals (LTCH) and builds on key priorities to advance health equity, including better measurements for healthcare quality disparities and improving the safety and quality of maternity care by establishing a...
Last Thursday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published the proposed 2023 physician fee schedule (PFS) which included an overhaul to the agency's strategies on accountable care organizations (ACOs) through the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP).
In February, CMS pulled the Accountable Care Organizations...
Last week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released a Framework for Health Equity at CMS, a frequently-used term by the agency that has been mentioned in nearly every initiative of President Joe Biden's Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
According to the CMS blog post "Establishing the Framework for...National News
After a long wait, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) announced that it has provisionally accepted 128 participants for the Participation Year 2023 cohort of the Accountable Care Organization Realizing Equity, Access, and Community Health (ACO REACH) model. The ACO REACH model is the redesign of the Global and...CMS Rules
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has approved Colorado's plan to create a public insurance option through a Section 1332 innovation waiver. The "Colorado Option" will be offered in the Colorado Affordable Care Act Health Insurance Exchange beginning in 2023.
According to Healthcare Dive, the Colorado Option is the...CMS Rules
Earlier this year, President Joe Biden relaunched his Cancer Moonshot Initiative, which was initially established under the Obama administration to accelerate research into cancer prevention and cures. As part of the initiative, the Biden administration announced a new alternative payment model (APM) from the Center for Medicare and...National News
Value-based care is now a ubiquitous term across the medical industry, primarily led by Medicare payment models that prioritize quality of care above overall cost. But some are questioning the concept's utility and expanse over the Medicare market.
Legislation proposed in both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate would...
Although day-to-day life in the U.S. has largely moved on from COVID-19, the Biden administration is continuing to pursue coordinated efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and urge Congress to increase funding for antiviral treatments and preparation for future surges.
In Arizona, there were 2,350 new cases of COVID-19 and 99 new...
Last week, the Commonwealth Fund published the results of a survey on discrimination in healthcare which demonstrated that nearly one-quarter of Black and Hispanic seniors have personally experienced racial discrimination or unfair treatment due to race in healthcare settings or by healthcare professionals.
The Commonwealth Fund, a...Arizona News
Equality Health, a popular value-based contracting partner in Arizona, is now seeking primary care providers and specialists to join its new direct contracting entity: Equality Health Direct, which began operations in January 2022.
Direct contracting entities (DCEs) participate in the Global and Professional Direct Contracting...
Last week was Black Maternal Health Week in the U.S., and with it came a number of announcements on support services through both public and private programs to improve health outcomes for pregnant or postpartum women of color and their children across the country and in Arizona.
In a short blog post for the Arizona Department of...
The American Hospital Association (AHA) announced its Health Equity Roadmap; a guide for hospitals and health systems to best remove structural barriers in health and become more equitable organization.
In its new guide, AHA pitches the new framework as a plan to meet organizations wherever they are in the process of creating a...
