Join other health centers to share challenges, successes, and promising practices for increasing access to care for migratory and seasonal agricultural workers (MSAWs). The National Center for Farmworker Health (NCFH) will provide guest speakers, tools, and resources to help you better identify and reach MSAWs — as well as properly capturing them in your Uniform Data System (UDS) reporting. Visit the registration page.

To ensure that individuals who are eligible for Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance program (CHIP) retain coverage, and to assist states in their continued transition to regular renewal processing, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is providing states additional time to complete eligibility renewals, address persistent backlogs in processing redeterminations, and ensure that states achieve compliance with federal renewal timeliness requirements. This Informational Bulletin outlines the duration and conditions under which states may use an exception in the regulations to delay timely processing of renewals in “unusual circumstances” through Dec. 31, 2025. The Medicaid continuous enrollment provision, which had halted Medicaid disenrollments during the public health emergency, ended on March 31, 2023, and since that time, over 25 million Medicaid enrollees have been disenrolled and over 54 million have had their coverage renewed.

Pennsylvania’s Health Insurance Marketplace Pennie, has produced a 2023 Annual Report highlighting the work of enrollment assistance, Medicaid Redetermination statistics and Pennie’s first Health Equity Report among other enrollment facts. Thousands of Pennsylvanians don’t qualify for Medicaid, Medicare, CHIP or employer-based coverage but, due to the Affordable Care Act of 2010, can access coverage through Pennie.

In the final year 2025 Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) final rule, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) solicited public comments to aid in the collection of information to determine future criteria to establishing a new graduate medical residency. In the final rule, CMS noted they received a wide range of comments, and commenters did not arrive at a consensus on the best approach to the issue of the newness of residents. CMS chose not to finalize their original proposal, and is instead seeking comment on the appropriate criterion for what constitutes a new residency program. The public may submit their feedback to GME_Program_Newness@cms.hhs.gov. Comments are due by October 15.

The 2025 National Health Service Corps (NHSC) Students to Service Loan Repayment Program registration cycle is now open! Final-year students studying to become a physician (MD/DO), dentist (DDS/DMD), physician assistant (PA), nurse practitioner (NP), or certified nurse midwife (CNM) may be eligible for awards of up to $120,000. An additional $40,000 supplement is available to physician and nurse midwife final-year students who commit to providing OB/GYN services in high-need areas. Registrations are due Thursday, November 7, 7:30 pm. Find out more about the NHSC Students to Service Loan Repayment Program and how to apply.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a revised Medicare Learning Network prescriber’s guide to Medicare prescription drug (Part D) opioid policies. Starting January 1, 2025, CMS is expanding the definition of an exempted patient being treated for cancer pain to include patients undergoing active cancer treatment and cancer survivors.

This Newborn Screening Awareness Month, visit HRSA’s Newborn Screening Information Center for the latest resources. HRSA’s newly updated site has information for both healthcare providers and families. This includes a step-by-step breakdown of the newborn screening process, a description of conditions screened, and links to external support organizations to help families navigate the newborn screening process. All information is available in both English and Spanish.

The Provider Relief Fund (PRF) Reporting Portal opened July 1 and will remain open until Sept. 30, 2024, at 11:59 pm. Providers who received one or more PRF (General or Targeted) and/or American Rescue Plan Rural payments exceeding $10,000, in the aggregate, from Jan. 1 to June 30, 2023, must report on their use of funds during Reporting Period 7 to comply with PRF Reporting Requirements. More information and resources can be found on the PRF Reporting webpage.

In November 2023, 17 hospital associations and 30 providers filed amicus briefs in support of the American Hospital Association’s suit against the restrictions imposed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on website tracking. Update: HHS last week dropped an appeal after a federal judge in Texas in June ruled that the department overstepped its authority by blocking hospital and other healthcare provider websites from using standard tracking technologies that capture IP addresses on portions of their public-facing webpages.

All Pennsylvania House representatives and half of state senators will be on the ballot this year, and even though these races receive less media attention than top-of-the-ballot ones, they still have huge determinations. Spotlight PA published a guide to vetting legislative candidates.