Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) recently announced that they will be holding a public webinar on Thursday, February 13, from 1:00pm – 2:00pm ET which will provide a detailed description of the newest funding opportunity, the Eugene Washington PCORI Engagement Awards.

Yesterday, Congressional negotiators in the House and Senate unveiled a bipartisan agreement on the framework for a repeal of the current Medicare physician payments Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula, which will avoid a 27% cut in Medicare payments to physicians set to go into effect on March 31st. The agreement includes a 0.5% payment update for physicians for five years before transitioning to an alternative payment model structure. The proposal is expected to cost about $126 billion over 10 years.

Last week, after mounting pressure from the hospital and physician community, CMS announced that it will delay enforcement of the two-midnight rule until October. The punitive measures of the rule were set to go into effect in April, and auditors will now have to wait until after September 30 to start auditing claims under the two-midnights rule.

Yesterday, three agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)-- the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Office for Civil Rights – jointly issued a final rule that removes legal barriers that prevent medical laboratories from providing lab test results directly to patients or their designees.