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Many orthopedic surgeons and ambulatory surgery center operators are delighted with the CMS' mid-July announcement that it's considering paying for total knee and hip replacement procedures in outpatient settings. But lots of hospital leaders are not. ...Hospital leaders are wary, however, for both financial and clinical reasons. They fear losing substantial inpatient revenue from total joint procedures—one of their bigger profit centers—to ambulatory surgery centers, as they've previously lost many other surgical procedures. In addition, they and doctors on staff aren't necessarily comfortable at this point doing the operations in either hospital outpatient departments or ambulatory surgery centers. (Meyer, 8/5)

Consumer groups are making a last ditch effort to stop the Trump administration from stripping nursing home residents and their families of the right to take facilities to court over alleged abuse, neglect or sexual assault. The Centers for Medicare & Medicare Services (CMS) announced plans in June to do away with an Obama-era rule that prohibited nursing homes that accept Medicare or Medicaid funds from including language in their resident contracts requiring that disputes be settled by a third party rather than a court. (Wheeler, 8/6)

Thousands of advocates have flooded the federal government with comments this week, weighing in on whether it should reverse an Obama-era decision to strip Texas of millions in federal funding for a health care program that excludes abortion providers and their affiliates. The number of comments to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on Texas' request has doubled in recent days, from 9,000 earlier this week to over 18,000 as of Friday afternoon, hours before the public comment period ends. (Platoff, 8/4)

Four out of five Georgia hospitals are set to receive Medicare penalties for having too many patients returning within a month of their discharge. The readmission penalties, levied under the Affordable Care Act, are meant to encourage hospitals to pay closer attention to what happens to patients after discharge. (Miller, 8/4)