The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent rulings are creating fundamental, swift changes in how healthcare is delivered in this country and how the industry will operate. We won’t know for some time just how seismic those shifts will be.
Among the decisions:
- The high court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending an almost 50-year legal precedent that provided a constitutional right to abortion before a pregnancy is considered viable.
- The justices unanimously backed hospitals in a case against the Health and Human Services Department, reversing an appellate court ruling that HHS can change 340B reimbursements rates without first gathering data on what hospitals pay for outpatient drugs.
- The court, overturning an appellate court ruling, backed HHS over hospitals regarding how Medicare reimbursement is calculated for safety-net hospitals.
- Justices ruled that a private health plan’s decision to limit its dialysis coverage was lawful, setting a legal precedent that some observers said could open the door to private health plans limiting other kinds of coverage.
As journalists at Modern Healthcare, we cover these decisions as part of our job to report and analyze facts, detailing the impact of that news on healthcare professionals, hospitals, health systems, insurers, vendors and their patients. We take the responsibilities very seriously, and we will continue to report on how these rulings will affect the industry’s balance sheets, employees and customers.
What you won’t see us doing is taking sides on these issues, or others. Contentious topics or not, our job is to be fair and accurate by including a variety of perspectives in our stories. Industry leaders, it is your job to determine what to take away from our reporting and how it influences your perspectives, decisions and actions. And there is no viewpoint like an informed one from leaders who, day in and day out, deal with the realities of someone else’s decision-making. It helps cut through the noise.
We encourage you to let your voices be heard.
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