Simplicity is a virtue.

From Washington, DC,

• The New York Times reports,
  • “The Senate health ​committee on Thursday advanced the nomination of Dr. Erica Schwartz, President Trump’s pick for director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for a full Senate vote.
  • “The committee’s Republican members and Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, all voted in favor of her candidacy, with the remaining Democrats opposed.” * * *
  • “The committee on Thursday also voted to ​advance ⁠the nomination of Sean Kaufman for assistant secretary for preparedness and response, a role that includes oversight of emergency measures during public health crises.”

• The American Hospital Association News relates,
  • “The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services [(CMS)] July 30 released the fiscal year 2027 final rule for inpatient rehabilitation facilities. The rule will increase payments by 2.3% overall, which includes a 3.2% market basket update reduced by a 0.9 percentage point productivity adjustment. In addition, CMS updated the outlier threshold, which it says will increase overall payments by 0.4% in FY 2027.
  • “CMS also finalized two changes to the IRF coverage requirements. This includes a requirement that therapies be initiated within 36 hours of admission to the IRF and an initial interdisciplinary team meeting be held within four days of admission to the IRF. CMS did not finalize a third proposal that would have required the patient’s current functional status be documented on the preadmission screening. For the IRF Quality Reporting Program, CMS finalized a shortened timeframe for submitting program data.
  • “Changes are generally effective Oct. 1, 2026.”

• Per a CMS fact sheet,
  • “On July 30, 2026, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a final rule (CMS-1851-F) that would update Medicare hospice payments and the aggregate cap amount for fiscal year (FY) 2027 under existing statutory and regulatory requirements.” * * *
  • “For FY 2027, CMS updated the hospice payment rate by 2.3% (an estimated increase of $755 million in payments from FY 2026). This figure results from the finalized 3.2% inpatient hospital market basket percentage increase reduced, as required by law, by a finalized 0.9 percentage point productivity adjustment. The finalized FY 2027 rates for hospices that do not submit required quality data information include the finalized FY 2027 hospice payment update percentage of 2.3% minus four percentage points as required by law, which would result in a 1.7% reduction over the previous year’s payment rate. These finalized payment rates reflect the most accurate, updated data available on the cost of goods, services, and labor.
  • “Hospice payments are subject to a statutory aggregate cap limiting the overall payments made to a hospice annually. The finalized hospice cap amount for FY 2027 is $36,174.75 (FY 2026 cap amount of $35,361.44 increased by the FY 2027 hospice payment update percentage of 2.3%).” 

• Beckers Hospital Review shares 11 things to know about these new CMS rules.

• U.S. Office of Personnel Management, writing in Substack, added another post to this Secrets of OPM blog titled “Plans are good, Execution is better.”
  • “Last year, I wrote about how the federal government needed to adopt a more disciplined approach to workforce planning. Every successful organization develops a thoughtful plan for the talent it needs to accomplish its mission. The federal government should be no different.
  • “Today, we’re taking the next step.
  • “The guidance OPM has issued to agencies on Annual Staffing Plans is about much more than compliance with a new planning process. It is about changing how the federal government thinks about hiring. Rather than defaulting to last year’s staffing levels or treating hiring as a series of isolated decisions, agencies will build comprehensive staffing strategies that begin with a simple question: “What workforce do we need to best serve the American people?””

• Per an OPM news release,
  • “The US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) today issued an interim final rule removing references to the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (UGESP) from OPM’s federal personnel regulations, bringing the agency’s regulations into conformity with the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel’s June 9, 2026, legal opinion concluding the Uniform Guidelines are unlawful and unconstitutional by encouraging race-conscious decision-making via “disparate impact” liability.
  • “The rule removes UGESP regulatory provisions while preserving longstanding federal requirements that employment practices be job-related, professionally developed, based on sound job analysis, and administered without prohibited discrimination.” * * *
  • “Federal hiring should be based on merit, qualifications, and the ability to perform the job,” OPM Director Scott Kupor said. “This rule ensures OPM’s regulations reflect legal guidance while preserving the rigorous, job-related standards that help agencies recruit and hire the most qualified workforce in service to the American people.”
  • “The interim final rule is effective upon publication in the Federal Register. OPM will accept public comments for 60 days before determining whether to revise, withdraw, or finalize the rule.”

• NextGov adds,
  • “The General Services Administration on Wednesday celebrated the graduation of 71 U.S. Digital Corps fellows, marking the largest graduating class since the program’s inception. Those graduates updated the FedRAMP website, helped streamline Agriculture Department environmental reviews and supported other technology projects during their stints in the federal government.
  • “This government has starved for talent, for people who understand how to do all the things that we want to do to deliver better,” OPM Director Scott Kupor said during graduation remarks.
  • “Some of the graduates of the two-year fellowship program are continuing civil service while others are headed to the private sector.”

• Tammy Flanagan, writing in Govexec, explains “Why time, not timing, is the biggest retirement advantage for federal employees.”
  • “A look at decades of market shifts and TSP data shows the biggest driver of retirement wealth isn’t picking the right stock. It’s starting early, contributing consistently and letting compounding do its work.”

From the Food and Drug Administration front,

• The Wall Street Journal reports,
  • “A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel voted 10-3 Thursday for Replimune Group’s experimental melanoma therapy, after a contentious meeting in which experts raised doubts about whether the company’s data and trial design could be trusted to show the skin-cancer drug works.
  • “Thursday’s recommendation is the latest turn in a regulatory saga that has stretched nearly two years.” * * * 
  • “Thursday’s meeting came a day after another closely watched advisory session, in which FDA advisers voted against Capricor Therapeutics’ cell therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy—a rejection that, like Replimune’s, followed a prior FDA denial.” 

• MedTech Dive relates,
  • “Artificial intelligence is here to stay at the FDA, but its integration and evolution may not be a straight line now that one of its biggest proponents, former commissioner Marty Makary, has stepped down.” * * *
  • “Acting commissioner Kyle Diamantas said AI remains a top priority for the FDA. Still, recent high-level departures, including Makary, Jeremy Walsh, chief artificial intelligence officer, and Sridhar Mantha, acting chief information officer, have raised questions about the future of AI implementation.
  • “It’s unclear now what the leadership and governance structure are around FDA-wide efforts,” said Tala Fakhouri, chief artificial intelligence and regulatory strategy officer at Parexel, and a former FDA AI policy official.”

No Surprises Act news,

• Beckers Payer Issues reports,
  • “Another health insurance CEO is taking aim at the No Surprises Act’s arbitration system.
  • “We do support the overall strategic intent of consumer protection from surprise billing. However, we’re seeing some clear abuses of the IDR vehicle in practice,” Cigna Group President and CEO Brian Evanko said on the company’s second-quarter earnings call July 30, adding that the system is seeing “unsustainable volume levels, much of which is concentrated amongst a small number of providers.” 
  • “On July 22, a Wall Street Journal analysis of CMS data put 2025 arbitration payouts at nearly $15 billion, up from $4.08 billion in 2024, with arbitration firms collecting about $1.3 billion in fees. On the earnings call, Mr. Evanko referenced last year’s payout figure but said the impact “has been manageable” within Cigna’s insurance business.”

From the judicial front,

• Fierce Healthcare reports,
  • “A federal judge has rejected a request from 26 states for a preliminary injunction in the Trump administration’s rollout of work requirements in Medicaid.
  • “The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services finalized implementation guidelines for states in June, with the eligibility requirements set to take effect on Jan. 1. States have until Aug. 31 to communicate with enrollees about the impacts of the changes.
  • “In an order issued Wednesday, Massachusetts District Judge Richard Stearns wrote that the states did not prove that establishing the systems necessary to make the eligibility determinations would cause them irreparable harm, as CMS said it would reimburse them for 90% of the costs for setting up those mechanisms.
  • :However, he said that the order does not reflect the court’s opinion on the merits of the broader litigation, which challenge provisions of the rule under the Administrative Procedure Act. Making a determination on that, as it questions whether officials hewed closely to Congressional intent in regulating the rollout of the requirements, requires a more complete picture.”

• Healthcare Dive relates,
  • “The Federal Trade Commission is suing Hims & Hers [in a California federal court], alleging the telehealth company illegally shared sensitive health information with advertisers and misled customers about its billing practices. 
  • “The agency says California-based Hims & Hers made it difficult for users to cancel subscriptions, charged patients for medications before they consulted with a provider and shared their health data with third-party advertising platforms like Meta and Snap. 
  • “Hims & Hers called the FTC’s claims “baseless,” saying in a Wednesday statement that the agency “contorts the law to try to manufacture claims.”

• Per a Justice Department news release,
  • “Access DX Laboratory, located in Houston, Texas, its former CEO Michael Stewart, and Florida businessman Harold Shatz, have each entered into settlements and will pay a combined total of $36.4 million to the United States to resolve allegations that they violated the False Claims Act (FCA) by paying kickbacks and billing Medicare and Medicaid for medically unnecessary genetic testing.
  • “The United States alleged that, from January 2018 through January 2020, Access DX, Stewart, and Shatz paid kickbacks to marketers in return for referrals of patients for genetic testing, unbundled billing codes for genetic testing, paid telemedicine providers for false and fraudulent doctors’ orders, and submitted and caused the submission of false claims for genetic testing.” * * *
  • “Except to the extent admitted by Stewart and Shatz in their plea agreements, the claims resolved by the settlement are allegations only and there has been no determination of liability.” 

From the public health and medical/Rx research front,

• The AP reports,
  • “A first-of-its-kind U.S. study suggests invasive mold infections may be an underappreciated — and potentially deadly — threat.
  • “The researchers detected about 450 cases in Atlanta-area hospitals over five years. About a third of the patients died in the hospital.
  • “The findings, published this week by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, come from an attempt to better gauge how common these kinds of illnesses are. The government does not require doctors to report the illnesses.
  • “It’s kind of the first time we’ve had an estimate like this,” said the CDC’s Dr. Jeremy Gold, the study’s senior author.”

• Per a Department of Health and Human Services news release,
  • “U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. today announced the launch of The Real Food Show, a new cooking series designed to help Americans prepare healthy, affordable meals using real, everyday ingredients.
  • “More than a cooking show, The Real Food Show is a national initiative that empowers families to make healthy eating practical, approachable, and affordable. Each episode combines simple recipes with the science behind them, translating the new Dietary Guidelines for Americans into meals that Americans can prepare in their own kitchens.”
  • “Visit The Real Food Show webpage for more details.”

• Radiology Business tells us,
  • “Adult CT radiation doses have decreased substantially over the last decade in the U.S., according to new research published Tuesday. 
  • “About 10 years have passed since data underlying the most recent national benchmarks for radiation dosing were collected. This underscores the need for updated reference values, as these guidelines may not reflect new advances in scanner technology, reconstruction methods and protocol changes, experts write in RSNA’s Radiology. 
  • “Researchers recently aimed to address this information gap, analyzing adult CT acquisitions performed across U.S. facilities in 2025. They discovered clear progress, with CT diagnostic reference levels declining an average of nearly 22% since 2014.
  • “The magnitude and consistency of these reductions across examination categories suggest that such advances have translated into measurable, population-level dose reductions in routine clinical imaging in the United States,” Kalpana M. Kanal, PhD, with the Department of Radiology at the University of Washington, Seattle, and colleagues wrote July 28.”

• The July 30 issue of NIH Research Matters covers the following topics:
  • Tracking diets via wastewater
    • “Measuring DNA from food in wastewater could provide snapshots of dietary patterns.
    • “Monitoring these patterns could be a powerful tool for informing nutrition policy.” 
  • Lung tumor signals may tamp down food intake
    • “Researchers found that a high-fat diet in mice amplifies nerve signals between certain lung cancers and the brain, leading to reduced appetite and weight loss.
    • “If confirmed in further studies, the results could inform strategies to improve nutrition and survival in certain patients with cancer.”
  • Bacteria share proteins to survive antibiotics
    • “Researchers found that some bacteria share proteins that help others survive antibiotics.
    • “The study suggests a novel approach that may help treat persistent bacterial infections.”
      
• MedPage Today informs us,
  • “Consuming less sugar before birth and during the first 1 to 2 years of life was tied to a lower risk of dementia decades later, U.K. Biobank data showed.
  • “The study used the abrupt end of World War II rationing as a natural experiment to test whether early-life sugar exposure was associated with late-life dementia.
  • “Previous research has linked early-life sugar rationing to less risk of diabetes and hypertension in adults and better cardiovascular outcomes.”

• Health Day adds,
  • “Want to give your tot a brain boost when it comes to learning language?
  • “Maintain eye contact as much as possible when you’re talking to them, a new study suggests.
  • “Eye contact helps a baby decide what is important, acting as a switch that triggers synchronization of their brain waves with those of the speaker, researchers reported recently in the journal Nature Communications.”

• Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News lets us know,
  • “An international team of researchers has identified multiple new genetic risk factors associated with fibromyalgia, a syndrome characterized by widespread pain and tenderness, fatigue, and problems with sleep, memory and mood.
  • :The team analyzed genetic data from more than 2.5 million adults, of which 55,000 were fibromyalgia patients. They identified DNA sequence variants in 26 regions of the genome that affect the risk of developing fibromyalgia. Many of the genes implicated in these regions are involved in brain and nerve function.
  • “The results provide the strongest evidence yet that fibromyalgia is primarily a nervous system disorder rather than an autoimmune disease, as has long been debated. “This work changes how we think about fibromyalgia at a fundamental level,” said Michael Wainberg, PhD, an investigator at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, part of Sinai Health, and the University of Toronto. “For decades, patients have been dismissed or told their pain is simply psychological. Our findings confirm the condition has a clear biological basis.”
  • “Weinberg is co-senior author of the researchers’ published paper in Nature Medicine, titled “The genetic architecture of fibromyalgia across 2.5 million individuals,” in which they concluded, “This study provides robust genetic evidence defining fibromyalgia as a central nervous system disorder, thereby establishing a biological framework for its complex pathophysiology and extensive clinical comorbidities.”

• Fierce Pharma points out,
  • “Investors anxiously waiting for Bristol Myers Squibb’s key Alzheimer’s disease psychosis readout for Cabenfy will have to wait a little longer. The company has once again delayed the expected phase 3 data from its Adept trial program, even as it delivered a group-wide quarterly beat that’s driving a significant forecast raise. 
  • “Rather than readouts in 2026, BMS now expects data from the three Adept trials to arrive beginning in early 2027 and be “spread across the year,” CEO Chris Boerner, Ph.D., said on the company’s earnings call Thursday.
  • “The delay was attributed to slower enrollment in the Adept-2 and Adept-4 studies and slower relapse event accrual in Adept-1, Boerner explained. Adept-1 could undergo an interim analysis as early as later this year, and BMS also plans to share safety and efficacy data this year from the trial’s open-label lead-in portion, he added.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

• Healthcare Dive reports,
  • “Cigna’s employer-sponsored plans reaped higher profits than expected in the second quarter after hiking premiums, spurring the company to raise its earnings outlook for 2026.
  • “Cigna results released Thursday are a relief for investors worried about broader pressures in the employer-sponsored market, which covers the majority of U.S. adults and has been a buoy for insurers slammed with higher spending in government programs in recent years.” * * *
  • “Cigna’s health services division Evernorth — which includes Express Scripts, one of the largest pharmacy benefit managers in the U.S. — brought in $1.7 billion in operating income in the quarter, down 2% year over year despite revenue growth.”
    
• Modern Healthcare adds,
  • “The weight-loss drug boom is beginning to show signs of a slowdown as employers and insurers pull back on coverage, signaling the market could be entering a more restrained phase after years of breakneck expansion.
  • “In the past few months, growth in prescriptions for GLP-1 drugs for weight loss like Novo Nordisk A/S’ Wegovy and Eli Lilly & Co.’s Zepbound have moderated, according to Cigna Group Chief Executive Officer Brian Evanko. The insurer’s unit that manages drug benefits has noted coverage declines and slower utilization growth compared to prior periods, executives said during an earnings call with Wall Street analysts Thursday.”

• Optum Rx, writing in LinkedIn, discusses “how plan sponsors can stay ahead of the latest drug cost trends.”

• Fierce Healthcare relates,
  • “Teladoc Health trimmed its 2026 revenue outlook as its virtual behavioral health unit, BetterHelp, faces revenue pressure with consumer demand for insurance-covered services outpacing clinical capacity.
  • “Teladoc shares fell more than 27% on Thursday following the company’s release of its second-quarter financial performance report on Wednesday.
  • “The company is shifting from subscription to visit-based revenue models, while also transitioning its virtual mental health business to accept insurance, moving from a cash-pay model to an in-network, insurance-covered model. The company is making “considerable progress” in building the insurance offering, including establishing a baseline national footprint a year after launching its first state, Teladoc Health CEO Chuck Divita told analysts and investors on a call Wednesday. 
  • “We have contracted for over $150 million in-network lives and credentialed more than 8,000 mental health professionals for the network at this point,” he said.”
• and
  • “Nearly three-quarters of patients with gambling disorder achieved clinically meaningful symptom improvement through Birches Health, a new study finds.
  • “The peer-reviewed outcomes study was recently published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research. It was a retrospective analysis of 1,305 adults treated by Birches between mid-2024 and mid-2026. 
  • “Birches, a virtual provider for digital addictions, says the study is the largest real-world dataset on virtual gambling disorder treatment in the U.S.” ‘

• Beckers Hospital Review tells us,
  • “Forbes rated the country’s hospitals state by state for 2026, with 259 earning the top mark of five stars.
  • “The Forbes Top Hospitals by State list, published July 14, draws on the national Forbes Top Hospitals 2026 ratings, which score general acute-care hospitals on measures pulled from the CMS Provider Data Catalog across four areas: patient outcomes (weighted at 55%), hospital best practices (20%), value (15%) and patient experience (10%). Each hospital lands on a single Forbes Overall Hospital Quality Rating of one to five stars.
  • “The article includes] the top of that scale: every hospital awarded five stars for overall quality, grouped by state. The five-star tier spans 42 states, ranging from a single hospital in states such as Alabama, Delaware and Wyoming to 19 in Wisconsin. Eight states — Alaska, Connecticut, Hawaii, Mississippi, Nevada, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont — along with the District of Columbia had no hospital reach five stars.”

• Radiolology Business informs us,
  • “A new analysis from Definitive Healthcare pinpoints [and the article lists] the 10 largest imaging center corporations in the U.S., based on location count. 
  • “RadNet tops the list with approximately 383 outposts at the time of the analysis, followed by the US Oncology Network (141), a chain of independent cancer docs backed by McKesson. Definitive Healthcare, a publicly traded commercial-intelligence firm, based the findings off data from its ImagingView product, which includes info from more than 22,000 centers. 
  • “As demand for outpatient imaging continues to rise, larger imaging companies are expanding through acquisitions, new site development, and care models focused on improving access and convenience for patients,” Definitive Healthcare said in an update posted July 23. “Several factors are contributing to this growth, including advances in imaging technology, increased demand for preventive diagnostic screenings, and an aging U.S. population.”

• Fierce Healthcare notes,
  • “Health tech company Stellarus announced Thursday the launch of an artificial intelligence-driven copilot geared towards helping health plan customer service representatives.
  • ‘The solution—dubbed Customer Service Representative (CSR) Chat—provides representatives with real-time guidance and contextual support during live interactions, surfacing relevant information, policy and recommended responses directly in workflows. 
  • ‘Stellarus president and CEO Vanessa Colella told Fierce Healthcare in an interview that “unsustainable healthcare costs” have been dominating conversations about the American healthcare system.
  • “It’s not about talking about someday it might not be working,” Colella said. “It is not working today. One of the places that it’s not working is cost. And another place it’s not working is member experience.”
  • “The solution hopes to address both core issues through administrative burden reduction and allowing representatives and members “to have the conversation that matters,” according to Colella.”