Hospitals affiliated with Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare have sued multiple insurers over alleged claim denials and reimbursement issues in 2025 and 2026. These cases contribute to a broader landscape of legal battles between providers and insurers. Most recently, seven hospitals…

CMS is penalizing 2,334 hospitals, about 80% of those evaluated, under the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program in fiscal 2027, according to new CMS data. The penalties took effect Oct. 1 and reduce hospitals’ base payments from traditional Medicare for inpatient…

Lane Regional Medical Center in Zachary, La., will close its inpatient labor and delivery unit Oct. 11, according to an Oct. 7 hospital news release shared with Becker’s. The closure comes two months after the hospital eliminated 14 positions and…

Health systems facing financial pressure are focused on approaches that move the needle in a meaningful way, and for several large organizations, those approaches have led to swings of hundreds of millions of dollars in operating performance. Becker’s talked to…

Health insurers are using AI to speed up prior authorization, but Fitch expects regulators to keep requiring humans in the loop when care is denied, and that will limit how much efficiency payers can gain. The outlook comes from Fitch’s…

Kentucky and Kansas residents are set to have a combined $284 million in medical debt erased through partnerships with nonprofit Undue Medical Debt, adding to a growing list of states and health systems that have launched similar efforts in 2026.…

The average healthcare CFO tenure runs 4.7 years, according to research from Crist Kolder Associates. Garrick Stoldt’s run at Saint Peter’s Healthcare System has about quadruple that, and outlasted many of his peers. Mr. Stoldt has served as vice president…

Health system operating margins tumbled into negative territory at the start of 2026 before gradually recovering and the recovery, while real, didn’t play out evenly. Strata Decision Technology’s Performance Trends Report for H1 2026 draws on financial and operational data…

Charlotte, N.C.-based Atrium Health launched a program to lower out-of-pocket costs for North Carolina State Health Plan members who use its physicians and hospitals, but State Treasurer Brad Briner warned the program could bankrupt the plan, North Carolina Health News…

Rising anesthesia subsidies are often treated as a staffing or reimbursement problem. But for many hospitals, the larger issue sits between the two: how effectively staffed anesthesia capacity is converted into procedural volume, documented care and ultimately collected revenue. That…