CMS estimates that Medicare Advantage plans will get more than 4% more in 2022 than they receive this year -- an increase of more than 1.25% compared to the rate in the advanced notice CMS released in October.
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President-elect Joe Biden on Friday (Jan. 15) outlined his plan to expand the availability of and access to COVID-19 vaccines by releasing most of the available doses in reserve, invoking the Defense Production Act to ensure there’s a robust supply, expanding vaccine eligibility to people ages 65 and over, and standing up more vaccination centers across the country and launching mobile vaccination clinics.
CMS estimates that Medicare Advantage plans will get more than 4% more in 2022 than they receive this year -- an increase of more than 1.25% compared to the rate in the advanced notice CMS released in October.
CMS largely dismissed providers and plans’ concerns that its proposal to ease prior authorization hurdles for patients would impose regulatory burdens on the industry, and it moved ahead to finalize the rule Friday (Jan. 15), less than nine business days after comments were due.
In two years, seniors will be able to compare out-of-pocket costs for drugs, and starting next year, Medicare Advantage and drug plans may create an additional “preferred” specialty tier and plans will be required to disclose pharmacy-performance measures.
New Hampshire is failing to provide adequate home- and community-based services to Medicaid beneficiaries through the state’s Choices for Independence waiver, alleges a class-action lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for New Hampshire on Monday (Jan. 11).
HHS is exempting physicians from certain certification requirements needed to prescribe buprenorphine for opioid use disorder, the department announced Thursday (Jan. 14).
The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America is pausing political donations to Republicans who voted against certifying the presidential election.
Advocates for lower drug prices say the Commerce Department’s eleventh-hour proposal to prohibit the government from using high prices as a reason to license third parties to make drugs and vaccines developed with federal funding is a give-away to the drug industry.
Drug makers hiked net prices on seven drugs, without clinical evidence to support their higher prices, that cost taxpayers an additional $1.2 B in 2019, according to the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review.
The new makeup of the House Energy & Commerce Committee nearly guarantees raucous hearings as five of the eight new GOP members voted against certifying the presidential election outcome, despite there being no basis for claims of a stolen election, and one Republican member who did not vote against certification had earlier backed a Texas lawsuit that tried to delay certification of results.
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Just a week before leaving office, the Trump administration finalized health exchange policies that critics say are aimed at unraveling key tenets of the Affordable Care Act.
There will be no updates posted today, Jan. 18, in observance of the Martin Luther King, Jr. federal holiday.
CMS Administrator Seema Verma is resigning her post effective Jan. 20 – when President-elect Joe Biden assumes office, she announced in a tweet Friday (Jan. 15) that spurred comments from some Democrats and consumer advocates happy to see her go.
CMS Administrator Seema Verma touted as a possible national model the agency’s Friday (Jan. 8) approval of a wide-ranging Medicaid 1115 demonstration that was panned by 21 patient groups and was expected to be rescinded by the incoming Biden administration -- with Verma stressing the Trump CMS changed the state’s proposed financing mechanism for the demo and the waiver shouldn’t be considered a block grant.
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