Senior care scores some wins in congressional budget deal
By
Alicia Lasek
Dec 21, 2022
A Congressional spending package for fiscal year 2023 supports key healthcare policy requests important to long-term care industry stakeholders, saving some clinicians and services from feared cuts.
Congressional deal meets docs halfway on pay, extends telehealth flexibility
By
Joe Bush
Dec 21, 2022
Potential pay cut relief that addresses some physician and therapist concerns is tucked into a 4,000-page proposed 2023 spending bill announced Monday by members of Congress.
Provider lobbyists and lawmakers speed up pleas for help with physician fee cuts
By
Joe Bush
Dec 14, 2022
With a looming Friday deadline to keep the government funded, time is running out for Congress to prevent or abate Medicare physician’s fee cuts proposed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
For-profit providers still on hot seat in final House COVID report
By
Joe Bush
Dec 12, 2022
Months after its first attack, a key House COVID subcommittee on Friday targeted five of the nation’s five largest for-profit nursing home companies over low staffing and wages and slow vaccine booster...
LTC providers fear ‘administrative mess’ if Congress pushes spending bill to 2023
By
Joe Bush
Dec 08, 2022
Year-end spending-bill negotiations in Congress are far from reaching their peak, but it’s already apparent how easily they can set off outsized reactions among skilled nursing stakeholders.
Baseless False Claims cases could decline with Supreme Court intervention
By
Kimberly Marselas
Dec 05, 2022
The Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday from federal lawyers seeking to dismiss more False Claims allegations in which the government chooses not to intervene, a move that would likely reduce the...
Rattled by uncertainty, Medicaid directors want Congress to give 120 days’ notice on end of PHE
By
Joe Bush
Nov 22, 2022
An association of Medicaid directors wants Congress to give four months’ notice before the end of the public health emergency. It was the main item in a letter to top federal lawmakers last week that...
Focused aging services apprenticeships would ease staffing woes, advocates say
By
Joe Bush
Nov 16, 2022
One way to refill the long-term care staffing pipeline is with a robust apprenticeship program that sends students to many of the nation’s nursing homes, officials with nonprofit nursing home advocate...
Nursing home telehealth ‘cliff’ avoided with pay rule adjustments
By
Joe Bush
Nov 03, 2022
Nursing home residents and their distant physicians got good telehealth news in the 2023 Physician Pay Rule issued Tuesday by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Why long-term care advocates are holding their breath over likely Congress power shift
By
Joe Bush
Oct 20, 2022
The effort to alter long-term care workforce policies is waiting, along with the rest of the country, on pins and needles for Nov. 8 election results.