CMS had requested comments on allowing direct provider contracting (DPC) with Medicare beneficiaries in the form of the alternative payment model. Among major healthcare groups, the response was decidedly mixed, ranging from cautious optimism to telling CMS to focus on other payment reforms.

Calling 2017’s failed efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act “one of the greatest disappointments to conservative and libertarian activists in history,” conservative groups pushed for another attempt at getting rid of the law with a series of principles they want to see enacted in place of the ACA.

The deal will still need to be approved by federal and state regulators, but after delays in contract talks and an unsolicited bid from Brown University, the agreement advances Partners HealthCare’s aim of expanding beyond Massachusetts and matching the increased scale of other Boston-based health systems.

Anthem’s controversial policy of pushing outpatient imaging not deemed medically necessary out of hospitals went into effect in Colorado in September 2017.

The Congressional Budget Office has scaled back its projections of coverage losses from the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate being repealed, estimating 8.5 million people will be uninsured in 2027 due to the penalty being eliminated by Republicans’ tax legislation beginning next year.

Health insurance giant Anthem implemented its controversial imaging policy in Colorado last fall which has limited CT and MRI coverage for the nearly one in five patients with private insurance in the state, according to a Denver Post report. Some experts question the motivation of the move.

According to the State Journal-Register, the court case rests on whether the 2012 statute makes a clear requirement that the hospitals’ charitable services at least equal the value of what they would otherwise pay in taxes. The plaintiff, Constance Oswald, has argued the law replaces the standard charitable requirement and therefore violates the Illinois Constitution and previous court rulings.

After months of sitting out of the flurry of mergers and acquisitions between insurers and providers, Anthem has made its first move by announcing it will acquire Aspire, the largest non-hospice, community-based palliative care provider in the U.S.