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CMS wants to allow state Medicaid programs to pay for home health aides' benefits, including health insurance. A proposed rule would permit state Medicaid agencies to use voluntary payroll deductions from home health workers' wages to pay third parties for employee benefits. Offering part-time workers benefits could help home health agencies recruit and retain employees, which in turn can improve access to home and community-based services, CMS said in a news release Friday. (Brady, 8/2)

Providers will no longer have to disclose their contract terms with Medicare Advantage insurers after CMS signed off on its 2022 inpatient pay rule Monday. The final rule gives providers a 2.5% bump for inpatient services payments, or $2.3 billion more than 2021. CMS expects Medicare disproportionate share hospital payments and Medicare uncompensated costs to fall by $1.4 billion compared to 2021. Long-term care hospitals will also get a 1.1% raise, a boost of $42 million. In addition, Medicare will continue paying add-on payments for COVID-19 treatments through the end of the fiscal year in which the pandemic ends. (Brady, 8/2)

OU Health announced several new initiatives Monday aimed at strengthening the state's nursing workforce amid a shortage of nurses in Oklahoma and nationwide. Among the new initiatives is a weekend nursing program, which will pay nurses for 72 hours of work if they commit to four 12-hour weekend shifts over two weeks, which they can also choose to split with a coworker. (Branham, 8/3)

When Ashe Gardens Assisted Living in Pender County “failed to provide supervision for 11 residents with assaultive, aggressive, sexually expressive and wandering behaviors,” state officials fined the facility $70,000 for that and other lapses, state records show. But the center hasn’t paid a dime of the fines levied in December 2019. All of those fines remain under appeal to the state Department of Health and Human Services more than a year and a half later. A representative from the facility said they could not comment on this situation. (Goldsmith and Dougani, 8/2)

Allegheny Health Network says its property insurer refuses to pay up to $1 billion in claims the health network is owed for losses resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, and it's taking them to court. The Pittsburgh-based not-for-profit 13-hospital chain asserts that American Guarantee & Liability Insurance Co. is "obligated" to cover those losses and expenses. The company, along with 43 direct and indirect subsidiaries, seeks a jury trial in the Pennsylvania Civil Division's Court of Common Pleas. Allegheny's allegations mirror those of at least 177 U.S. businesses, many of which are healthcare providers, that are suing the U.S. subsidiary of Zurich Insurance Group over unpaid COVID-19 claims. (Tepper, 8/2)

In July 2016, two cardiologists and a handful of computer scientists and developers rolled up in a minivan to Apple’s special projects office in Cupertino, Calif., with a big idea to show a company with grand designs on transforming health care. The team from Johns Hopkins University had received a rare invitation from Apple to workshop their mock-ups for Corrie, an app to guide heart attack patients through the maze of recovery. For a week, Apple and the Hopkins team labored on the design, carefully talking through the minutiae of each feature. (Aguilar, 8/3)

UnitedHealthcare and Northside Hospital have signed a contract to bring all of Northside’s Atlanta-area hospitals into the insurer’s network. The two organizations announced their new deal Monday. The new contract restores United members’ access to Northside’s Lawrenceville and Duluth hospitals, which will also be part of United’s Medicare Advantage plans. The two hospitals had been out of network for United members for five months. (Miller, 8/2)

KHN: A Health Care Giant Sold Off Dozens Of Hospitals — But Continued Suing Patients 

Tennova Healthcare-Lebanon doesn’t exist anymore as a hospital. But it still sued Hope Cantwell. A knock came on the door of Cantwell’s Nashville, Tennessee, apartment early this year. She said she hadn’t been vaccinated against covid-19 yet and wasn’t answering the door to strangers. So she didn’t. But then several more attempts came over the course of a week. Eventually she masked up and opened. A legal assistant served her a lawsuit; she was summoned to appear in court. (Farmer, 8/3)