Healthcare Authority Newsletter - March 2026
Summary
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has doubled its nursing home staffing campaign funding to $200 million. The newsletter also highlights state encouragement for ACA signups, physicians forming IPAs, increased healthcare IT and cybersecurity investments, a report urging reform of private equity investment in healthcare, and CMS's efforts to leverage AI for Medicare beneficiaries.
What changed
This newsletter from Arnall Golden Gregory LLP summarizes several key developments impacting the healthcare sector. Notably, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has significantly increased its funding for nursing home staffing initiatives to $200 million, with the campaign set to launch this summer. Additionally, states are promoting business tax breaks for facilitating employee ACA signups, primary care physicians are forming Independent Physician Associations (IPAs) to enhance market power and control, and health systems are substantially increasing investments in cybersecurity and IT systems in response to escalating threats.
Other significant points include a report from NYU Stern urging reforms for private equity investment practices in healthcare companies due to concerns about care quality, hospital closures, and reduced staffing. CMS is also exploring the deployment of artificial intelligence tools to assist Medicare beneficiaries in navigating their care. Compliance officers should note the increased focus on nursing home staffing, the evolving landscape of physician practice organization, and the critical need for robust cybersecurity measures and strategic IT investments within healthcare systems.
What to do next
- Review CMS nursing home staffing campaign details and potential impact.
- Assess current cybersecurity and IT infrastructure against industry trends and threats.
- Monitor developments regarding private equity investment in healthcare and physician practice consolidation.
Source document (simplified)
March 27, 2026
Healthcare Authority Newsletter - March 2026 #3
W. Jerad Rissler Arnall Golden Gregory LLP + Follow Contact LinkedIn Facebook X Send Embed News Briefs
CMS Doubles Funds for Nursing Home Staffing Campaign to $200M
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz said that the budget for his agency's nursing home staffing campaign has more than doubled to reach $200 million. The campaign was originally set to devote $75 million to nurse training and recruitment for the long-term care sector but is set to begin in earnest this summer.
(Source: McKnight's Long-Term Care News, 2026-03-16)
States Encourage Businesses to Give Tax Breaks for ACA Signups
More states are encouraging businesses to help employees sign up for Obamacare. They're using a policy backed by President Donald Trump -- the same Donald Trump who spent much of the fall deriding Obamacare as the "Unaffordable Care Act" -- to do it.
(Source: Politico, 2026-03-15)
Physicians Banding Together to Form IPAs to Control Practices
Thousands of primary care practices, a key gateway to the medical system, are fighting to remain financially viable -- and independent. In response, many are banding together to form Independent Physician Associations, or IPAs, with the goal of increasing their market power, changing the way they get paid, and retaining control over how they treat patients.
(Source: KFF Health News, 2026-03-11)
Health Systems Boosting Investments in Cybersecurity, IT Systems
As the calendar has flipped to 2026, hospital executives and IT leaders find themselves at the nexus of accelerating digital transformation and an increasingly hostile cyber‑threat landscape. This escalation has prompted major health systems to rethink their digital strategies: Surveys show that 84 percent of CIOs plan to increase funding for cybersecurity in 2026, with a median budget jump of about 26 percent, making it the largest spending increase.
(Source: NCHstats, 2026-03-16)
Report Urges Reforming P.E. Investment in Healthcare Companies
Private equity's influence over healthcare companies' quality of care warrants new reforms for the firm's investing practices, a new report says. The report, published by NYU Stern’s Center for Business & Human Rights, aimed to document the problems observed in recent years stemming from P.E. ownership in healthcare, including hospital closures, reduced staffing, and compromised healthcare services.
(Source: FierceHealthcare, 2026-03-10)
CMS Seeks to Help Medicare Beneficiaries Take Advantage of AI
The CMS wants to deploy artificial intelligence tools to Medicare beneficiaries to help navigate their care, CMS officials said at the HIMSS conference. The agency is already using the technology to detect fraud, but the CMS also hopes to get the technology into patients' hands, both to assist seniors and to hopefully bring down rising healthcare spending, which continues to outpace the rest of the economy.
(Source: Healthcare Dive, 2026-03-13)
81% of Physicians Using Artificial Intelligence, AMA Report Finds
The vast majority of physicians surveyed by the AMA say they are using augmented intelligence tools to stay on top of medical research, create discharge instructions, document medical visits, and more. The 81 percent use rate is more than double what it was when the AMA first polled doctors on health AI in 2023, showing how physicians' comfort with this technology has grown rapidly as the tools have become more sophisticated.
(Source: AMA, 2026-03-12)
Health IT Developers Face Sanctions for Information Blocking
Ease of health data exchange is a top priority for the nation's health IT regulator, and the agency is taking steps to sanction companies that block the free flow of information, according to Dr. Thomas Keane, assistant secretary for technology policy and the national coordinator for health information technology. The ASTP/ONC is in the process of issuing notices of nonconformity to IT developers accused of information blocking who participate in the agency’s health IT certification program, the first potential enforcement action in nearly a decade since Congress banned information blocking.
(Source: Healthcare Dive, 2026-03-12)
SNFs Face Increased Scrutiny Over 'Affiliate Risk'
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is increasingly relying on a relatively new -- and recently expanded -- regulatory tool to quickly remove clinicians and companies from the Medicare system when they are even loosely affiliated with other organizations being investigated or prosecuted. The CMS focus on hospice fraud is partly to blame, but so is an expansion of related regulations late last year that allows the agency to exercise its disenrollment option retroactively and more broadly, even over technical compliance issues such as failing to submit an address change.
(Source: McKnight's Long-Term Care News, 2026-03-11)
Hospital CFOs Face Decisions After Ruling in Leapfrog Case
A federal court ruling against The Leapfrog Group is raising new questions about how hospital safety ratings are calculated and how much influence those ratings have on patient decisions and hospital reputations. For CFOs, the decision underscores the operational and financial stakes tied to third-party quality ratings.
(Source: HealthLeaders Media, 2026-03-13)
Hospitals Spent $43B Over Denied Pay, Prior Authorizations in 2025
Claim denials, prior authorizations, repeated documentation requests, and changing billing and coverage rules are delaying payments for care already delivered to patients, forcing hospitals to spend billions on collecting them. Hospitals spent $43 billion in 2025 chasing payments stuck in this administrative limbo, according to the "Costs of Caring" report from the American Hospital Association.
(Source: TechTarget, 2026-03-12)
Related Posts
- Healthcare Authority Newsletter - March 2026 #2
- Healthcare Authority Newsletter - March 2026 #1
- Healthcare Authority Newsletter - February 2026 #4
Latest Posts
- No Alarms and No Surprise Syncs, Please: How to Retain Control Over Sync Licensing After Giving Up Copyright
- Healthcare Authority Newsletter - March 2026 #3 See more »
DISCLAIMER: Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations.
Attorney Advertising.
©
Arnall Golden Gregory LLP
Written by:
Arnall Golden Gregory LLP Contact + Follow W. Jerad Rissler + Follow more less
PUBLISH YOUR CONTENT ON JD SUPRA
- ✔ Increased readership
- ✔ Actionable analytics
- ✔ Ongoing writing guidance Join more than 70,000 authors publishing their insights on JD Supra
Published In:
Affordable Care Act + Follow Artificial Intelligence + Follow Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) + Follow Cybersecurity + Follow Health Care Providers + Follow Health Insurance + Follow Healthcare Facilities + Follow Hospitals + Follow Nursing Homes + Follow Physicians + Follow Private Equity + Follow Regulatory Oversight + Follow Skilled Nursing Facility + Follow Health + Follow Insurance + Follow Science, Computers & Technology + Follow more less
Arnall Golden Gregory LLP on:
"My best business intelligence, in one easy email…"
Your first step to building a free, personalized, morning email brief covering pertinent authors and topics on JD Supra: Sign Up Log in ** By using the service, you signify your acceptance of JD Supra's Privacy Policy.* - hide - hide
Related changes
Source
Classification
Who this affects
Taxonomy
Browse Categories
Get Healthcare alerts
Weekly digest. AI-summarized, no noise.
Free. Unsubscribe anytime.
Get alerts for this source
We'll email you when JD Supra Healthcare publishes new changes.