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The Department of Health and Human Services will is introducing a first-of-its-kind program to study microplastics and the effect they have on the human body, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Thursday. Kennedy said the $144 million national program will be called STOMP, which stands for "Systemic Targeting of MicroPlastics." The program will bring toxicologists, data scientists and other experts together to create standardized tools capable of detecting and quantifying microplastics in the human body, research the effect they have on humans, and develop targeted strategies to remove them from the body, Kennedy said. (Breen, 4/2)

The layoffs and subsequent attrition have winnowed staffing levels to such an extent that sources in divisions particularly affected described feeling like they were working on a skeleton crew. And the work of the HHS is suffering as a result, they said. (Parduhn, 4/1)

On CMS and Medicare —

Nursing homes, hospice providers, inpatient rehabilitation facilities and inpatient psychiatric facilities would receive payment boosts under a slate of proposed rules the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued Thursday. Nursing homes would see a 2.4% Medicare payment bump in federal fiscal year 2027, which begins in October. CMS proposed raising inpatient rehabilitation rates by 2.4%, hospice payments by 2.4%, and inpatient psychiatric facility rates by 2.3% for the same period. (Early, 4/2)

The Trump administration is slashing the number of quality and care measures that Medicare Advantage plans will be graded on, a move that will funnel an extra $18.6 billion toward health insurers over the next decade. (Herman, 4/2)

Accountable care organizations have long raised concerns about the financial impacts of suspicious billing practices — but an announcement this week from the federal government could provide some relief. In a Tuesday memo sent to organizations in the Medicare Shared Savings Program and the ACO Realizing Equity, Access and Community Health, or ACO REACH, model, CMS announced it will exclude spending associated with certain codes from ACOs’ payment calculations. (Early, 4/2)

President Donald Trump’s plan to cover weight-loss medications for some people in the Medicare program for the elderly would cost the health insurers billions in its first year, a new analysis found. The Trump administration has argued that the lower prices it negotiated with drugmakers last year would offset the cost of adding coverage for millions of new patients. The plan will “expand access and lower prices for obesity GLP-1 medication without passing the bill to taxpayers,” Mehmet Oz, director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said in a video promoting the plan. (Cohrs Zhang, 4/2)

A group of Democratic senators led by Elizabeth Warren is pushing the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to rein in abuses from Medicare Advantage insurers as the Trump administration considers a policy that would enroll more seniors in the program. (Cohen, 4/2)

Also —

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is operating with fewer staff in the wake of the Department of Health and Human Services’ restructuring while embarking on a number of major policy initiatives, potentially complicating the agency’s ability to carry out its goals, experts say. The CMS lost around 300 employees in the Trump administration’s sweeping purge of the federal workforce last year, leaving remaining staff to carry out historic policy changes at the CMS including the first-ever national work requirement for Medicaid, an ambitious health technology initiative and more stringent fraud oversight. (Olsen, 4/1)