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Hospitals would get a 2.6% pay increase in fiscal 2025 under the Inpatient Prospective Payment System proposed rule released Wednesday by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The reimbursement boost, which the agency projects would be a $3.2 billion pay bump, is down from the 2.8% pay hike in fiscal 2024. The American Hospital Association, along with other hospital associations, said the proposed pay rates aren't enough to combat inflation. (Kacik, 4/10)

Health insurers, physicians and accountable care organizations issued recommendations Wednesday outlining what they see as the best ways to boost value-based care initiatives. The report from the health insurance trade group AHIP, the American Medical Association and the National Association of ACOs focuses on total-cost-of-care contracts, ACOs that typically span three to five years and have demonstrated success improving quality and reducing costs, according to the organizations. (Tepper, 4/10)

Costs for home healthcare for the elderly and bed-ridden have gone up by 14.2 percent over the past year, according to new Consumer Price Index data released Wednesday.  That represents the largest percent increase in home healthcare costs during a 12-month period since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began collecting data on such costs in 2005.  The United States has an aging population, and the need for care among the nation’s roughly 73 million Baby Boomers is driving up the cost of nursing homes, assisted living facilities and home healthcare.  (O'Connell-Domenech, 4/10)

Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News: After Uphill Battle, Company Is Poised For Takeover Of Bankrupt California Hospital

When American Advanced Management made a bid for the bankrupt Madera Community Hospital last year, many local officials and others involved in trying to reopen the facility didn’t take the company seriously. The 11-year-old firm, based in Modesto, was already running a handful of small, rural hospitals, but Madera had far larger and more prestigious suitors, including Trinity Health and then Adventist Health. (Montalvo and Wolfson, 4/11)

Sanford Health has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Great Plains Women's Health Center in Williston, North Dakota. The Sioux Falls, South Dakota-based rural health system said in a Tuesday news release it intends to continue offering reproductive healthcare services at the facility and eventually add primary care and cardiology, orthopedics, pediatrics and plastic surgery services. (DeSilva, 4/10)

Prime Healthcare finalized its $350 million acquisition of five New Jersey and California hospitals from Medical Properties Trust. The purchase agreement, announced in February, consists of $250 million in cash and a $100 million interest-bearing mortgage note due to the real estate investment trust in nine months, according to a news release issued April 9. The hospitals include Saint Francis Medical Center in Lynwood, California, and four Saint Clare’s Health facilities in New Jersey. (Kacik, 4/10)

In a rigorous assessment of over 4,500 adult hospitals, U.S. News & World Report recognized MemorialCare’s Long Beach Medical Center as one of the top 50 best U.S. hospitals in orthopedics. In addition, the medical center scored high performance rankings for hip replacement, hip fracture and knee replacement. (4/10)

Providers are seeing some improvements following the Change Healthcare cyberattack nearly two months ago, but not necessarily because they are reconnecting to restored systems. Hospitals and medical groups are submitting claims to payers through alternate vendors, allowing them to generate cash. But the level of claims and payments moving among healthcare organizations that had heavily relied on Change Healthcare is still far from normal. (Berryman, 4/10)

A far-reaching new privacy bill could have major implications for how healthcare providers, insurance companies and third parties handle and utilize sensitive data. While the bipartisan American Privacy Rights Act of 2024 is not specific to the healthcare industry, a number of its proposed policies would impact how healthcare companies do business. (McAuliff, 4/10)