[ad_1] Listen to the article 7 min This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. The HHS on Tuesday deferred more than $1 billion in Medicaid payments to California and Minnesota, the latest salvo in the Trump administration’s war on fraud in federal programs. Regulators halted roughly $867.5 million in funding for California and $199 million for Minnesota, after reviews found a significant number of payment claims that needed additional documentation, health officials announced in a press briefing Tuesday. The deferrals are set to add more stress onto the states’ already strapped Medicaid budgets. The CMS paused…
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[ad_1] Listen to the article 4 min This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Dive Brief: The CMS is moving to restrict the taxes on providers and managed care companies that states use to fund Medicaid, proposing a rule to codify policies in the GOP’s tax and policy megabill passed last summer. The rule released Tuesday would create new limits on the taxes based on provider and state, phase down allowable taxes in Medicaid expansion states and strengthen federal oversight of the arrangements. CMS actuaries estimate the changes will lower the federal government’s Medicaid spending by $246 billion…
[ad_1] Listen to the article 2 min This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Dive Brief: Nonprofit health systems AdventHealth and Intermountain Health have taken the first step toward inking a partnership to unite their services in the Denver area. The proposed joint venture would bring together AdventHealth’s five hospitals, urgent care centers, medical practices and off-site emergency clinics around Denver with Intermountain’s three hospitals and related practices in the area, the systems announced Tuesday. AdventHealth and Intermountain have signed a letter of intent and anticipate signing a definitive agreement in the next few weeks.…
[ad_1] Listen to the article 3 min This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Dive Brief: Nearly 1 in 4 U.S. workers say they’re staying in a job they dislike because they’re worried about losing their health insurance, according to a report published this week. The number of workers reporting “job lock” is up from just five years ago, when 1 in 6 said they stayed in a job they would otherwise leave to keep their health benefits, according to the study published Tuesday by West Health and Gallup. The rise comes as premiums, drug…
[ad_1] Listen to the article 3 min This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Dive Brief: The Department of Labor’s employee benefits arm proposed a rule Wednesday that would allow insurers to share mandatory group health plan disclosures with their beneficiaries electronically. Many of the communications, like summary plan descriptions, claims denials or notices that coverage can continue after a job loss, are currently sent via physical mail. But if the rule is finalized, plans will be able to post the documents online and notify a member by text or email when a disclosure is available.…
[ad_1] What are you up to this weekend? Our AC is broken, so we’ve decamped to our friends’ house for a few days. We’re going to watch The Sheep Detectives — I think I’m more excited than the boys are! Hope you have a good one — stay safe with this wildfire air — and here are a few links from around the web… The new series Ride or Die looks really fun and gets a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. When A.I. is a part of the family — the profile, of a single mom, her two daughters, and a chatbot in Cleveland, blew my…
[ad_1] How was your weekend? A few months ago, a CoJ reader named Molly asked if we could share weekend recaps now and again, so here’s mine, and please share yours in the comments, if you’d like… My honorary niece Grace, who lives in England, is spending the summer doing medical research in New York — I’m so happy she’s here! Since Saturday was very rainy, we took her to Art of Play, a magic and games store in Brooklyn Heights. We loved playing with the little puzzles. If you figure one out, the shop owner rings a bell, which…
[ad_1] When I was little, I thought that “vulgar” was a language — spoken, I presumed, in the country of Vulgaria. I imagined it as a nation full of rude and unkind people who chewed gum with their mouths open and said “butt” instead of “bottom.” This was all because of my dad, who was comically polite. To him, drinking from a straw was inappropriate (“They’re meant to be used in hospitals”), and children were always “children,” never “kids.” Drop a casual “heck” and he’d look almost wounded. “Let’s not be vulgar, Kels.” By age four, I’d figured out both…
[ad_1] When I was 18, I used all my babysitting money and pizza-restaurant earnings to buy a prom dress at Nordstrom. It was long and black and silky, and I got a manicure for the first time ever. The dream! Then, a couple years ago, a Cup of Jo reader told us she had significantly different sized feet — 6.5 and 10. “After decades of buying two pairs of shoes only to pitch the ‘off’ sized ones,” she said, “Nordstrom stole my heart when I learned they would sell me the mismatched pair I needed. They remain the only store…
[ad_1] Earlier this summer, we kicked off our new food series: one ingredient, three ways. So far, we’ve featured chickpeas and eggs, and this week we’re turning to chicken breasts. Because it’s so easy to make chicken breasts boring, I often forget how easy it is to make them utterly sumptuous. The three recipes today — from cookbook authors Odette Williams, Christina Chaey, and Dan Pelosi — are so delectable that I now have a freezer full of poultry. Set aside your memories of dry, pallid cutlets, and check out these the all-stars… Odette Williams, cookbook author and writer of the newsletter…