Entry Details

About the Entry

Category: 
Online > Online Industry News Coverage > Upper Midwest

Title of entry: 
HFMA Industry News Coverage Nick Hut and Rich Daly

Issue or Publication date:
1. May 7, 2024: Closures of Walmart’s health centers reflect ...; 2. Aug. 1, 2024: Ramifications of a proposed rule to halt credit reporting of medical debt; 3. Nov. 15, 2024: An eventful period for healthcare policy looms as Trump and GOP members of Congress prepare to govern; 4. Sept. 20, 2024: 4 bipartisan healthcare policy changes likely in 2025; 5. Nov. 18, 2024, Medicare Advantage risk payment soars as hospitals left behind; 6. Nov. 5, 2024, Supplemental Medicaid payments drive hospitals to seek out enrollees as patients

Publication name: 
hfm, FastFinance

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hfma.org

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Entry URL(s), if applicable:
Please enter a URL that will direct judges to the entry: 
https://www.hfma.org/payment-reimbursement-and-managed-care/payment-models/closures-of-walmart-health-centers-reflect-the-widespread-financial-constraints-in-us-healthcare/
Additional URLs, if needed:
https://www.hfma.org/revenue-cycle/ramifications-of-a-proposed-rule-to-halt-credit-reporting-of-medical-debt/
https://www.hfma.org/payment-reimbursement-and-managed-care/an-eventful-period-for-healthcare-policy-looms-as-trump-and-gop-members-of-congress-prepare-to-govern/
https://www.hfma.org/healthcare-finance/4-bipartisan-healthcare-policy-changes-likely-in-2025/
https://www.hfma.org/fast-finance/medicare-advantage-downside-risk/
https://www.hfma.org/fast-finance/some-providers-seek-more-medicaid-patients-as-programs-finances-improve/

Entry Essay: 
We were recently told by a prominent association research firm that the way we do content is “very unusual for an association.” And that’s the way we like it. The editorial division made up primarily of ex-newspaper reporters and editors, is led by a former top news-industry executive, and we naturally operate like a traditional daily news organization, right down to breaking news. In fact, our member surveys show our daily online news coverage and publications are considered the No. 1 benefit of HFMA membership. We strive to break new ground in the truest sense of the phrase, delivering our audience content and insights they cannot get anywhere else.

Content entered in this category by senior editors Nick Hut and Rich Daly took deep dives into topics of special current interest to our association’s membership of healthcare finance professionals. For example:

• Walmart’s decision to close its health centers (“Closures of Walmart’s health centers reflect the widespread financial constraints in U.S. healthcare”) was noteworthy for what it signaled about ongoing efforts by nontraditional healthcare providers to disrupt the status quo, as well as the state of primary care in the U.S.

• Proposed federal regulations prohibiting the reporting of medical debt to credit-reporting agencies (“Ramifications of a proposed rule to halt credit reporting of medical debt”) had major implications for healthcare billing and collections processes, to the consternation of some industry stakeholders.

"An eventful period for healthcare policy looms as Trump and GOP members of congress prepare to govern," was written within a week of the Nov. 5 election, with Hut interviewing several external sources and one internal source for insight, and adding information following news that President-elect Donald Trump was nominating Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of HHS and then Mehmet Oz as administrator of CMS on Nov. 19. The magazine went to press a few days later.

• Amid uncertainty ahead of the 2024 elections and what changes could come to healthcare policy in 2025 (“4 bipartisan policy changes likely in 2025”) industry analysts agreed that changes were most likely in four specific policy areas, regardless of the election outcome.

• Despite the industry’s fixation on traditional Medicare as driving value-based payment, private payers in Medicare Advantage have emerged as the leaders in the movement to value (“Medicare Advantage risk payment soars as hospitals left behind”). Now the question is whether hospitals will join in their efforts.

• Hospitals are changing their view on patients who were coved by the historically worst payer in health (“Supplemental Medicaid payments drive hospitals to seek out enrollees as patients”) due to a new and fast-growing funding stream that has emerged in recent years.

These are the types of stories that help explain why the CFO of Mayo Clinic has said HFMA Daily is the newsletter he has to open every day.