Articles and Blogs

Hall Render Advisory Services, the consulting arm of Hall Render, is pleased to announce Thomas Diemer, MD, has joined the company as a Principal Advisor. With over 30 years of experience in various roles, Dr. Diemer is a renowned physician and is poised to bring his expertise to clients seeking innovative solutions that improve... READ MORE

Hall Render Advisory Services, the consulting arm of Hall Render, is pleased to announce Mark Reifsteck has joined the company as an Advisor. With over 25 years of experience in the health care industry, Mark is a seasoned health care executive with expertise in health care systems and hospital strategy, operations consulting, leadership, executive... READ MORE

NATIONAL 16 bills in healthcare package, but little to show for nursing homes AHA discusses legislative proposals on site-neutral, 340B and other issues at House subcommittee hearing AHA: Financial Challenges Continue as Hospital Expenses Rise AHA: Supply chain won’t return to ‘normal’ anytime soon, but here’s what you can do American Hospital Association wants... READ MORE

Kaiser Permanente has agreed to acquire PA-based Geisinger Health System. The combination, which still must pass federal and state regulatory scrutiny, would have more than $100B in revenue. Commercial landlords are contending simultaneously with a cyclical market downturn and reduced demand for office and retail space. The recent surge in interest rates has caused... READ MORE

It’s time to reexamine the conventional wisdom that “not a good fit” should never be used to justify termination of employment, but only if that negative conclusion about the employee is sufficiently corroborated and is not a subterfuge for an employer’s unlawful motivation. A federal court of appeals just ruled that telling an employee... READ MORE

Diversified Healthcare Trust (DHC) will merge with Office Properties Income Trust (OPI) in an all-stock transaction. DHC owns 379 health care properties valued at an estimated $7.1 billion. OPI owns 160 general office properties with a $577 million market cap. Optum is now in the business of providing loans to physician practice groups. This is another way Optum... READ MORE

NATIONAL 6 health systems using GPT and AI tools 100,000 nurses left industry during the pandemic, report finds AHA backs bill to delay Medicaid DSH cuts by 2 years AHA launches info hub for healthcare quality leaders AHA opposes MedPAC recommendations to Congress on site-neutral, Part B drug, wage index policies AHA ramps up... READ MORE

The FFY 2024 IPPS Proposed Rule (“Proposed Rule”) was released on April 10, 2023, and CMS published the associated tables on its website.  The Proposed Rule is expected to be published in the Federal Register on May 1st.  This year CMS is proposing to implement a change to its rural floor wage index policy... READ MORE

On April 12, 2023, the Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) in the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (“HHS”) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) to strengthen privacy protections under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”) for reproductive health care. The proposed rule builds on the previous guidance... READ MORE

NATIONAL 94% of Organizations Experienced a Cyberattack in 2022 AHA blog: Strengthening crisis management in rural health care Biden signs bill ending Covid-19 national emergency Cancer drug shortages are creating dire circumstances for some patients CMS Releases FY24 IPPS Proposed Rule, Seeks to Boost Rates by 2.8% CMS issues FY 2024 proposed rule for... READ MORE