Category: Uncategorized

Sandra Alvarez has a distinct perspective on this. Listen here: https://heal-ca.org/how-hospital-consolidation-inflates-prices-and-hurts-patients/?fbclid=IwAR2f64mHUi8Snpyk6DdztifavIR_aYZUo1UCfhadArXVoaL83yebOun42cI

Nursing Home Bankruptcies are apparently leading the way on healthcare bankruptcies. Is this correlated with private equity ownership of nursing homes? Anybody know? Inquiring minds would like to know.

Rebecca Blank died in February. Perhaps her greatest legacy is the supplemental poverty measure she crafted, most remarkable for measuring some different things, including government benefit programs, when measuring poverty.

But each state must choose whether to implement 30, 60, or 90 day enrollment renewal and unwind accordingly. The Great Unwinding is complicated, to say the least.

Once the COVID Public Health Emergency Ends (anticipating May 11, 2023), Americans will be fully exposed — once again — to the vagaries of pricing in our health care system as it applies to COVID-19 testing. All of the problems with a lack of transparency on pricing encapsulated in one question: How will I pay for COVID-19 testing after May 11, 2023?

Good to know what is not causing vote tally delays in California. Good to know.

The final regulation is out from HHS attempting to fix what is know as “the family glitch” and giving a further 200,000 Americans opportunity access subsidized health insurance coverage through the exchanges. If you think about, it is amazing it took so long from the Affordable Care Act’s inception and implementation to address the fallout from allowing household family members to be within the definition of those eligible for exchange purchase because of unaffordability of employer offered family plan health insurance. In short, those opposing the fix maintain that the drafters meant those offered employer sponsored insurance that exceeds roughly 9.4 percent of their income for a family plan should seek publicly funded insurance, charity, or go without.

The political maneuvering around declaring COVID over and done is absolutely fascinating. But, today, I am interested in the official end of the declaration of public health emergency by the federal government. So much hinges on the termination date: HIPAA requirement waivers; nursing home staffing standards waivers, are two that loom large. Today, I learned the official termination of the federal pronouncement of the public health emergency has been extended until January 1, 2023.

One business analysis article implies it is a no brainer and an obvious brand expansion for Walgreens and others to expand into the home health industry. OK, so maybe this is promising for industry, but would it be good for consumers? Or, is it CMS’s proposed home health payment rule that is triggering much of this?

Who wants to take a field trip to Best Buy in November? Word is, their new in-store sale centers for OTC will be up and running by then. The New York Times wonders how hearing aid dependent audiology practices will adjust to the pivot to selling hearing aid support for equipment purchased elsewhere. I do as well. Might their resources be turned to helping more intensively those beyond mild to moderate hearing loss — the target demographic for OTC hearing aids? The hearing aid industry is ripe for disruption in the moderate to severe hearing loss group as well.