Are you still billing fee-for-service in 2026? 🏥 If you are, CMS just told you exactly what they think of that. On July 14, CMS dropped the proposed Physician Fee Schedule for Calendar Year 2027. And buried inside a dense regulatory document is a message that every physician practice, FQHC CEO, and health system CFO needs to hear right now. The gap between those inside value-based care and those outside it just got wider. Here is what the proposed rule actually says, according to the CMS fact sheet: - Qualifying APM participants (QPs) get a +0.75% conversion factor update for CY 2027 - Non-QPs get only a +0.25% update - The proposed QP conversion factor drops to $33.17, a decrease ...

The world has a third-largest Ebola outbreak. Right now. And most people in healthcare have barely looked up from their inboxes. According to The Analyst Desk, the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, caused by the Bundibugyo strain, just became the third-largest Ebola outbreak on record. Cases climbed from roughly 1,460 cases and 452 deaths in early July to 1,947 cases and 704 deaths by July 9. That is the death count rising by roughly 50 in 100 in about ten days. 🌍 Let that number sink in for a second. ⚠️ Here is what the data actually shows: - Case-fatality rate stands near 34 in 100, meaning close to 1 in 3 confirmed patients has died - ...

More FDA clearances in radiology AI should mean safer imaging. It does not. The number on the scoreboard looks impressive. According to AI Certs, academic analysts verified 950 cleared AI tools as of August 2024, and industry media now cite 1,400 to 1,500 authorizations through mid-2026. Radiology captures roughly 70% of that entire list. Chest imaging triage and intracranial hemorrhage detection lead the pack. We are winning the clearance race. We may be losing the evidence race. Here is the part that should make every health system pause: A JAMA Health Forum study mapped 182 recall events across 60 cleared tools. Nearly half of those recalls occurred within twelve months of authorization. Researcher Tinglong Dai called the findings "stunning." And ...

$110 million just went into fixing Medicare. Here is why that matters. Pearl Health raised $50 million in Series C equity and locked in a $60 million credit facility, according to Startup Geek citing Axios Pro Rata. The lead investor is Andreessen Horowitz. Viking Global Investors, AlleyCorp, and Ulysses Capital also participated. This is not just another health tech raise. This is a bet on a specific, hard problem. Pearl Health builds the operating system for value-based care in Medicare. Their platform synthesizes claims data, ADT feeds, and EHR data to identify which patients need attention before costs spiral, guide care teams on next steps, and automate the administrative work that burns out clinicians. Here is what they have built ...

86 FDA AI clearances in one quarter. Most people read this wrong. I read the Innolitics Q2 2026 AI/ML FDA clearance breakdown and stopped at one line: 84 of those came through 510(k), but only 12 were Special 510(k)s. That small number is the entire story. Here is why that distinction matters more than the headline count. According to Innolitics, FDA authorized 86 AI/ML devices in Q2 2026. Radiology led with 59 records. That sounds like momentum. But if you are building or buying AI for your imaging workflow, the total authorization count is almost irrelevant. What matters is how these products evolve after first clearance. I call this The 4-Stage AI Device Maturity Stack. Use it to evaluate any ...

Everyone says this is a budget bill. It is not. For every FQHC director, community health worker, and safety-net provider reading this, H.R.1 is a patient volume crisis arriving in slow motion. A pregnant woman shows up at a community health center. She applied for Medicaid after her first prenatal visit. Under the old rules, her coverage could be backdated two months to cover care she already received. Under H.R.1, that window is now one month for Medicaid expansion enrollees. The bills for that first visit, and anything else before her application date, now fall on her. That is not an edge case. That is the new normal. According to the National Consumers League, here is what H.R.1 actually does ...

Radiologists, why does 95% of the AI you piloted never reach a patient? That number should stop you cold. According to Rad AI, citing the MIT Nanda report, the AI pilot failure rate across healthcare sits at 95%. Not 30%. Not 50%. Ninety-five percent of AI pilots succeed on paper, then stall in practice. That is not a technology problem. That is a healthcare culture problem. And in radiology, it is getting harder to ignore. Here is the data picture Rad AI laid out in a July 2026 piece worth reading: • 95% of AI pilots fail to scale beyond the pilot stage, per the MIT Nanda report • Implementation costs alone can exceed $200,000, per work out of Duke ...

Medicaid just drew a line that science says is wrong. And millions of people in long-term recovery are standing on the wrong side of it. The One Big Beautiful Bill passed about a year ago. It drastically altered Medicaid. Now we are in the rulemaking phase, where CMS explains to the public exactly how those changes get implemented. According to Faces and Voices of Recovery, we are in the midst of a rulemaking process that is highly complex and covers several aspects of the legislation. Two provisions deserve your full attention right now. First: work requirements for Medicaid recipients. There is a Medically Frail exemption, but it requires you to meet one of five specific categories: • Blind or disabled ...

A congressional staffer sits at a desk in 2026, not November, not after the midterms. They are already requesting that companies preserve information. Already cultivating external sources. Already drafting investigative frameworks. This is the reality according to Healthcare Dive, citing attorneys from Holland and Knight's Washington, D.C., office. Congressional Democrats are planning investigations into major healthcare topics if they win majorities in the 120th Congress this November. But the preparation is not waiting for election results. Here is what they are targeting: • Drug pricing strategies and manufacturer price increases • Insurance premium increases and cost-sharing structures • Facility fees and billing practices • Compliance with the No Surprises Act • Medical debt collection and credit reporting practices • Private ...