Articles and Blogs

A recent report highlighted how independent rural hospitals are increasingly forming regional networks in order to gain negotiating leverage, reduce costs and participate in value-based care while maintaining independence amid health system consolidation. One example is North Dakota’s 23-hospital Rough Rider High-Value Network, which was launched with state support and serves a large share of…Read More

On July 30, 2026, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) issued its final rule updating Medicare payment policies and rates for skilled nursing facilities (“SNFs”) under the Skilled Nursing Facility Prospective Payment System (“SNF PPS”) for federal fiscal year (“FY”) 2027. The final rule also includes significant revisions to the Skilled Nursing Facility…Read More

On August 5, 2026, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) announced that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) has begun the decertification process for Network for Hope, the organ procurement organization (“OPO”) with a service area that includes Kentucky and portions of Indiana, Ohio and West Virginia. According to HHS,…Read More

On July 7, 2026, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) issued a proposed policy statement addressing what it describes as the “suppression of accuracy” in artificial intelligence (“AI”) systems. The proposal would apply traditional deception principles under Section 5 of the FTC Act to AI systems whose outputs are allegedly steered away from users’ objectives or…Read More

On July 10, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan (“District Court”) in Right to Life of Michigan v. Nessel pressed pause on reaching the constitutional question at issue: whether Michigan’s expansion of sex-based discrimination to include the termination of pregnancy violates Plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights. Instead, the District Court granted…Read More

Connecticut adopted sweeping changes to its certificate-of-need (“CON”) program. Among other changes, the reforms are intended to narrow certain review requirements, adjust thresholds for when approval is needed and create a more predictable path for some facility and service-line projects. The changes reflect continued state-level attention on streamlining CON approvals. Intermountain Health and AdventHealth announced…Read More

On July 27, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas in Covenant Medical Center v. Kennedy (“Covenant”) once again vacated a 2023 Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) regulation that excluded inpatient days covered by an uncompensated care funding pool when counting Medicaid Days in the Disproportionate Share Hospital (“DSH”)…Read More

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) issued a proposed rule to update drug establishment registration and listing requirements for distributed manufacturing (“DM”) and certain foreign drug establishments. If finalized, the rule would create a streamlined registration pathway for qualifying distributed manufacturing establishments (“DMEs”) that manufacture drugs at multiple physical locations, while also aligning the…Read More