Major payer group the ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC), representing large employer plan sponsors, wrote a letter to the U.S. House of Representatives this week decrying legislation that would impose fines on insurers who don’t follow mental health pay parity requirements.

Improving health equity requires changes to risk adjustment, physicians said Tuesday. Current risk adjustment underestimates the total cost of care of patients who have comorbidities and socially complex issues, said physicians who spoke Tuesday during a Primary Care Collaborative session on achieving equitable primary care services. 

An audit of inappropriate Medicare payments to acute care hospitals has found that such improper payments are on the decline: While hospitals logged $39.3 million in improper Medicare Part B payments from 2016 to 2021, that’s a decrease from the $51.6 million in alleged overpayments that occurred between 2013 and 2016.

A major pharmacy group has sent a letter to the White House urging the administration to retain COVID-19 emergency provisions under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act for a couple more years.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has released the 2023 premiums, deductibles, and coinsurance amounts for fee-for-service Medicare Part A and Part B, and the 2023 Medicare Part D income-related monthly adjustment amounts.

The Biden administration is putting $5 million toward community health centers in an effort to increase access to cancer screenings and early detection services for underserved populations. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, through the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), will distribute the funds to HRSA-funded community health centers.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has announced $90 million will be awarded over the next five years to five state public health departments to establish the Pathogen Genomics Centers of Excellence network. 

Physician staffing company Envision Healthcare is struggling financially, and these struggles are reflected in a Moody’s Investors Service credit rating downgrade, which took into account ongoing labor pressures and a decline in volumes linked to the COVID-19 pandemic.