The Pennsylvania Department of Health (PA DOH) conducted a statewide, voluntary survey of mobile units between July and August 2024. Results indicate the majority of mobile units deployed were launched in the last seven years, and many operate less than five days per week. Preventive care was the service most often provided by mobile units. Lastly, the funding that most often supported mobile units was federal, philanthropy, and state funding.

IMPORTANT REMINDER: All providers must revalidate the Medical Assistance (MA) enrollment of each service location every five years. Providers should log into PROMISe to check the revalidation dates of each service location and submit revalidation applications at least 60 days prior to the revalidation dates. Use this link for enrollment revalidation applications.

The Modern Medicaid Alliance (MMA) released new polling data on Medicaid. The polling highlights the program’s overall popularity, the favorability of specific parts of it, and the number of voters who have a personal or family connection to Medicaid. Click here for more information about the report.

The House Appropriations Committee recently announced the beginning of the Fiscal Year 2026 appropriations process. As of Monday, April 14, House Members may begin submitting programmatic and language requests and Community Project Funding requests for the upcoming year. Deadlines for all the different subcommittees are available. The Senate Appropriations Committee also released guidance to the Senators for Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 Congressionally Directed Spending (CDS) requests. The earmark requests to the Committee are May 16, so individual senators will set even earlier deadlines for their own consideration. Visit the website of your Member of Congress and/or Senator to find out if they are accepting requests and their deadline.

Legislation recently introduced in Pennsylvania would address the state’s dental workforce shortage while ensuring patient safety. HB 787, the Interstate Dental & Dental Hygiene Licensure Compact, is backed by the American Association of Dental Boards and would allow dental professionals with Compact privileges to seek licensure in Pennsylvania while maintaining high standards, including hand skills examinations. The bill is currently in the House Professional Licensure Committee.

On April 11, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued a proposed rule for the Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 Inpatient Psychiatric Facility Payment System (IPF PPS) and IPF Quality Reporting Program (QRP). The proposed rule includes a 2.6 percent increase to the prospective payment rates, updates to the outlier threshold, the case-mix-group relative weights and average length of stay values and the wage index. Under the IPF QRP, CMS proposes to remove two quality measures, and is seeking feedback with four Requests for Information (RFIs). Once finalized, updates will be effective October 1, 2025.

On April 11^th, 2025, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released proposed rules for Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNF) and Inpatient Rehabilitation Facilities (IRF) annual updates. Each rule proposes updates to Medicare payment and quality measurement policies for Fiscal Year 2026, which begins October 1. The proposed rules indicate a 3.2 percent increase in payments for rural SNFs and a 2.7 percent increase for rural IRFs.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a proposed rule that provides updates to the fiscal year (FY) 2026 Hospice Quality Reporting Program (HQRP). The proposed rule estimates that in FY 2026, hospices in rural areas would experience on average, a 2.7 percent increase in estimated payment compared to FY 2025. The rule also proposes to clarify in the hospice payment regulations that the physician member of the interdisciplinary group (IDG) may recommend admission to hospice care, which would align with certification regulations and the Conditions of Participation (CoPs). CMS also proposes to clarify that the hospice face-to-face encounter attestation must include the physician’s/practitioner’s signature and date.

This proposed rule from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) seeks public comment on payment updates and policy changes to Medicare’s acute care inpatient hospital and long-term care hospital prospective payment system (IPPS/LTCH). For fiscal year 2026, CMS proposes a 2.4 percent increase to base rates for acute care hospitals that successfully participate in the Inpatient Quality Reporting program and are meaningful electronic health record users.  Additionally, CMS proposes to discontinue the low wage index hospital policy, which provided an upward adjustment for hospitals in areas with the lowest wages, and a transition policy for hospitals significantly impacted by the discontinuation of this policy. There are several proposed changes to the suite of quality programs – Inpatient Quality Reporting, Value Based Purchasing, Hospital Readmission Reductions, Hospital Acquired Conditions, Medicare Promoting Interoperability, and LTCH Quality Reporting. Finally, CMS proposes several changes to the Transforming Episode Accountability Model (TEAM), the Innovation Center mandatory payment model in which hospitals in select geographic areas coordinate care for people undergoing one of five surgical procedures, including allowing post-acute care to occur in rural swing beds without a prior 3-day hospitalization.