Healthcare Payers / Providers

With likelihood growing that Congress focuses on emergency spending and a short-term continuing resolution funding the government into Q1 next year during this lame duck period, we expect that translates to Congress punting on nearly-annual,…

Key Takeaways:  We still expect nursing homes and their post-acute care REIT landlords to secure a reprieve from the Biden CMS rule imposing minimum nurse staffing requirements on these long-term facilities. However, we see that…

Key Takeaways: We continue to expect that UNH’s acquisition AMED will be completed, despite reports that the DOJ is preparing to sue to block the $3.3B deal on antitrust concerns. While clearly a setback, this…

Key Takeaways: We think investors exposed to insurers in the ACA exchange markets (OSCR, CNC, MOH, ELV) are underestimating the odds that the next Congress temporarily extends some of the enhanced Obamacare subsidies to focus…

Key Takeaways: CMS largely met reimbursement and policy expectations with its CY25 final Medicare payment rules for hospital outpatient departments (HOPDs), ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) and physician firms. This is despite the improvement, relative to…

Key Takeaways:  CMS offered slight improvements in dialysis center payments, relative to this summer’s proposal, in its CY25 final rule released Friday, but we do not view this as material for providers or addressing other…

Key Takeaways:  Changes to Medicare home health payments live up to expectations of a minimal increase, but with future negative adjustments following CMS’s release of its CY25 final rule Friday. As we wrote in mid-October,…

Key Takeaways: The need for legislative savings to offset healthcare extenders during the lame duck puts a target on hospital outpatient departments (HOPDs) and ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs). While we doubt Congress will slash operators’…

Key Takeaways: We remain optimistic about the long-term policy outlook for the managed care industry, despite the puts and takes for different business lines associated with the outcome of the upcoming elections on Nov. 5….

Key Takeaways:  Medicare reimbursement history suggests home health agencies are in store for a very low single-digit increase YoY in overall Medicare payments and their 30-day base rate when CMS issues its final CY25 payment…