Major insurers pledge prior authorization reform
Editor's Note Nearly 50 major US health insurers—including UnitedHealthcare, Aetna, Cigna, Elevance, and Humana—have pledged to reform prior authorization practices, with the goal of easing administrative burdens and improving access to care, according to a June 23 article in Healthcare Dive. As detailed in the article, the announcement came from…
Bad debt climbs as patient defaults, denials impact hospital revenue growth
Editor's Note Bad debt—payments hospitals expected to collect but ultimately had to write off—is increasing across hospitals as patients struggle to pay their share of healthcare costs and insurers raise the rate of claim denials, Modern Healthcare reported June 19. Citing a Kaufman Hall analysis of data from about 700…
Tariffs stir uncertainty in hospital supply chains, health insurance premiums
Editor's Note Recent reporting from Axios reveals hospitals and health insurers are reporting new concerns about rising tariffs and trade policy uncertainty, with the former delaying purchasing decisions and the latter planning premium increases as a result. In the first article, published June 18, the outlet reports that health system…
Healthcare leaders project revenue gains from value-based care despite persistent hurdles
Editor's Note Nearly two-thirds of healthcare organizations expect increased revenue from value-based care (VBC) arrangements in 2024, signaling growing confidence in the model despite concerns over financial risk and infrastructure gaps, according to a May 19 report in Healthcare Finance. The findings are based on a nationwide survey of 168…
Scrubs to startups: Nurse entrepreneur turns Navy-taught leadership into consulting mastery
The kind of Navy-taught leadership Brian Dawson, MSN, RN-BC, CNOR, CSSM, taps into is straightforward. “If you’re going to lead 3,500 people to move to the left when you need them to, you better know how to get them to see your goals as their goals,” he says during a…
Telesurgery possibilities becoming more than remote
Remote surgery has come a long way since the first-ever case in 2001, when a surgeon in New York City operated on a patient in Strasbourg, France. No longer a product of science fiction, telesurgery’s advance promises to change—and save—countless lives, from patients in remote areas to those in warzones…
ASCA 2025: How accounting becomes an ASC revenue generator
Editor's Note Terry A. Bohlke, MSHA, CPA, CMA, CASC, emphasized that Rocky Mountain High Surgery Center is a pseudonym “to protect the innocent,” but the numbers he presented at the 2025 Ambulatory Surgery Center Association (ASCA) Conference & Expo in Denver last week were real enough. Based on actual scenarios…
Proactive strategies help healthcare supply chains withstand tariff pressures
Editor's Note Tariffs on medical equipment and supplies continue to climb—a situation that calls for action on the part of healthcare organizations, according to an April 23 article from nonprofit safety organization ECRI. The article highlights ten proactive steps organizations can take to protect both care quality and the bottom…
Market volatility threatens hospitals’ liquidity as tariff-driven costs rise
Editor's Note Tariff-fueled market volatility is jeopardizing the investment returns that nonprofit hospitals rely on to bolster liquidity, manage debt, and weather ongoing operational headwinds, according to an April 16 report in Fierce Healthcare. As detailed in the article, hospitals face a dual threat: higher direct costs on supplies and…
CMS vision shifts as agency halts funding for state programs
Editor's Note The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will no longer approve federal matching funds for designated state health programs (DSHPs) and designated state investment programs (DSIPs) that are not directly related to Medicaid services. According to the April 10 announcement, the decision aims to preserve the core…
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