Signals

For HR-positive, HER2-negative locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer with an ESR1 resistance mutation

For Alexander disease

For Polycythemia vera

Adults with polycythemia vera

For Metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma in adults after one prior treatment or who cannot tolerate combination chemotherapy

Adults with metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma

For Supplemental breast cancer screening in women with dense breast tissue

For Advanced/unresectable cutaneous melanoma that progressed after anti-PD-1 treatment, used in combination with nivolumab

Adults

For narcolepsy type 1

For locally advanced or metastatic ROS1-positive non-small cell lung cancer after progression on a prior ROS1 tyrosine kinase inhibitor

adults

For Wet age related macular degeneration, macular edema following retinal vein occlusion, diabetic macular edema and diabetic retinopathy

For multiple myeloma, across three combination regimens (with pomalidomide and dexamethasone, with carfilzomib and dexamethasone, and with bortezomib, lenalidomide and dexamethasone)

For HR-positive, HER2-negative, PIK3CA-wild-type locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer that progressed after prior treatment, used with fulvestrant, with or without palbociclib

Adults

For High LDL cholesterol in adults, including heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia

For Early Alzheimer's disease with mild cognitive impairment or mild dementia

For newly diagnosed and relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, in combination regimens

For primary immunoglobulin A nephropathy

adults at risk of rapid disease progression

For weight loss

Medicare beneficiaries

For sickle cell disease

patients aged 2 and older

Health systems, universities and health AI vendors partnering with ARPA-H; named recipients include Kaiser Permanente, Duke University, Stanford University, Atman Health, Tempus AI and Updoc

Rural hospitals, health departments, and community organizations in New York, Indiana, Arkansas, Michigan, and Rhode Island already selected under the states' approved rural health transformation plans.

Organizations building nutrition, physical activity, sleep, stress management, and functional-medicine interventions alongside conventional care for traditional Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries

Awarded to the State of Hawaii under the $50 billion state-grant Rural Health Transformation Program created by this year's federal budget reconciliation law

States, tribes, and community organizations working on substance use prevention, treatment, and long-term recovery support

Alaska rural health projects across 142 initiatives, part of the state's $1.36 billion five year allocation under the $50 billion federal program

158 new and existing HRSA-funded community health centers

State governments, awarded to all 50 states based on approved rural health transformation plans

Community behavioral health clinics in Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Washington and West Virginia meeting CCBHC certification criteria

Applications close Jul 20, 2026

eligible rural hospitals, federally qualified health centers, and nonprofits in Tennessee

applications open on a rolling basis; no single close date announced

How to apply

More than 700 hospitals closed their maternity wards between 2010 and 2024, leaving 57 percent of rural hospitals without a birthing unit as of 2024 and pushing the number of states where at least half of rural obstetric wards have shut from 12 to 31.

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At least 37 states carry a combined $60 billion in federal Medicaid spending on state directed payments to hospitals that exceeds the new payment caps under the 2025 reconciliation law, with Texas facing a $3.5 billion reduction and CMS already withholding $9.8 billion in Texas payments.

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HHS's justification for cancelling 53 Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program grants relied on scientific citations that appear fabricated or nonexistent, a pattern the court called a hallmark of AI-generated citations

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Employers expect total health benefit cost per employee to rise 8.2 percent in 2027, the steepest projected jump since 2003, even after planned cost-cutting steps.

A 262-patient sham-controlled trial found catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation did not produce a statistically significant quality-of-life improvement over a sham procedure, despite cutting AFib recurrence sharply (73 percent versus 52 percent free of AFib at six months).

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Physician practice management deal volume fell from 851 transactions in 2021 to 105 in the first half of 2026 as at least 25 states have proposed or passed laws restricting private equity control of medical practices, three of which took effect in 2026.

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8,467 primary care Health Professional Shortage Areas cover more than 92 million Americans but meet only about 48 percent of documented primary care physician need, requiring roughly 15,600 more primary care physicians to close the gap nationwide, with just 9.3 percent of physicians practicing in rural areas versus 40.4 percent in major metros.

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Expanding Florida's homestead tax exemption under Amendment 3 would cut public hospital districts' property tax revenue by an estimated $323 million over three years, including more than $100 million at North Broward Hospital District, $63.7 million at Jackson Health System, and $66.5 million at the Healthcare District of Palm Beach County.

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Reviewers flagged 66 percent ($5.4 million) of $8.1 million in disclosed Louisiana sheriff opioid settlement spending as inappropriate under the settlements' allowable use guidelines, while $10.7 million more went undisclosed.

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Two of three reviewed Arizona Medicaid managed care insurers could not produce reliable prior authorization data proving compliance with federal mental health and substance use disorder parity requirements, making Arizona the third state, after Kansas and New York, found to fail this check

124 rural hospitals have stopped delivering babies or announced plans to since the end of 2020, leaving only 41 percent of rural hospitals still offering labor and delivery

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The number of US hospitals offering obstetric services has fallen by half over four decades while neuraxial labor analgesia use rose from 61 percent of deliveries in 2015 to 84 percent in 2025

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Only 27 percent of 1,180 surveyed hospitals provide a financial stipend for round-the-clock in-house obstetric anesthesia coverage

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About 25 percent of maternal health providers listed as in-network on Medicaid managed-care state network lists said they were not actually in-network, and nearly half were missing from the plans' public directories

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New York has disbursed nearly half a billion dollars of its $3 billion-plus opioid litigation settlement funds so far, more than four years into the crisis

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DaVita says moving phosphate binders into the Medicare dialysis payment bundle cut the share of patients relying on less effective over-the-counter phosphate binders by more than half, contributing to lower mortality and treatment volume growth tracking to the high end of guidance, even as revenue per treatment fell about $2 sequentially.

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Only 333 candidates matched into nephrology fellowships for Appointment Year 2026, down 8 percent from the prior year, with just 89 of 186 training tracks, or 48 percent, filling completely and 66 percent of 501 offered positions claimed even as positions offered rose 1 percent year over year.

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Premier Medical Distribution LLC filed for Chapter 11 protection with 10 million to 50 million dollars in liabilities against 1 million to 10 million dollars in assets, and the filing states no funds will be available for unsecured creditors after administrative expenses are paid.

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Standard prior authorization denial rates averaged 12 percent in Medicare Advantage, 14 percent in Medicaid managed care, and 18 percent in the ACA Marketplace, with individual insurers ranging from 2 percent to 25 percent; on appeal, insurers reversed denials 43 to 67 percent of the time.

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Median operating margin for nonprofit hospitals and health systems rose to 1.5 percent in 2025 from 1.1 percent in 2024, the best mark in Fitch's dataset since before the pandemic, with 67 percent of providers posting positive margins

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Durable medical equipment fraud schemes exploiting supplier enrollment status, physician orders, and beneficiary ID numbers continue to evolve faster than CMS's safeguards

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Insurers paid $15 billion last year through the No Surprises Act arbitration system, with providers winning about 85 percent of disputes and 87 percent of awards exceeding insurers' benchmark rate

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Health Share of Oregon violated federal and state requirements in 21 of 100 sampled 2023 Medicaid prior-authorization denials, an estimated 5,677 improper denials in one year.

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More than 225 hospitals and health systems billed insurers close to $120 million over a decade for pediatric gender-transition care, including about $50 million billed under a generic endocrine-disorder diagnosis code that does not reference gender dysphoria, obscuring what was actually billed

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Analysis of CMS mandated 2025 prior authorization data from 14 major insurers covering about 71 million enrollees found denial rates ranging from 5 percent (Elevance Medicare Advantage) to 25 percent (Centene ACA marketplace), and most appealed denials get overturned.

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Employers project a median 10 percent rise in health plan costs for 2027, the second consecutive year of a double digit forecast, with GLP-1 drugs cited by 67 percent of employers as the top specialty drug cost driver.

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The current U.S. certified nurse-midwife workforce is roughly 14,000 against a need of about 22,000 to meet the World Health Organization's minimum staffing benchmark, an 8,200 shortfall, and 56 percent of U.S. counties have no nurse-midwife at all.

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In Virginia's Medicaid doula benefit, fewer than 1 percent of Medicaid-covered pregnant patients, roughly 600 people, received a covered doula visit from January 2022 through December 2024, and fewer than half of the state's 130 Medicaid-enrolled doulas ever billed the program.

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At least 96 U.S. labor and delivery unit closures occurred nationwide across 35 states since January 2024, eliminating the only birthing facility in nearly 60 percent of the affected counties and pushing the maternity care desert share of U.S. counties to roughly one in three.

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Roughly 310,000 Pennsylvanians, including about 26,000 in Allegheny County (10 percent of that county's Medicaid enrollees), are expected to lose Medicaid coverage as the state shifts from annual to six-month eligibility renewals and adds federal work, training or volunteering verification requirements.

Median outpatient imaging interpretation turnaround time rose 27% between 2023 and 2024, with ultrasound worsening most at 49.1%

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Federal programs, led by HHS, generated $230 billion in identified fraud, waste and improper payments and $56 billion in payments actually stopped since January 2025

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44 percent of ASCs expect to pay anesthesia providers a stipend in 2026, up from 28 percent two years ago, and 67 percent rank anesthesia coverage among their top three financial challenges

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Of 100 sampled Medicare sacroiliac joint injection sessions from Oct 2023 through Sept 2024, 72 did not comply with Medicare requirements and 25 more did not meet Medicare guidance; extrapolated to an estimated $15.2 million improperly paid across 134,526 of 186,842 sessions, including 46,711 sessions miscoded as therapeutic instead of diagnostic. CMS concurred with provider-education recommendations but rejected the recommendation for a systemic billing fix.

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For-profit hospices ran nearly 167 percent higher non-hospice Medicare spending per day than nonprofit hospices in FY2024, up from about 60 percent in FY2022, the data CMS used to justify its new SSVI fraud score.

Median annual Medicaid ABA spending per child rose from $8,903 to $21,203 as national spending grew six times faster than the number of children served; the new toolkit flags treatment plans above 16 hours a week for review and calls 40-hour weekly plans not a best practice.

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National Medicaid/CHIP ABA spending rose 400% (about $2B to $10B) from 2021 to 2025 while children served grew only 67%, prompting a new state oversight toolkit recommending prior authorization thresholds and documentation review.

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Unauthorized access to a CareCloud Amazon Web Services environment between March 10 and March 16, 2026 exposed personal, health insurance, and payment card data for at least 345,000 patients nationwide, including 270,197 in Texas

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Missouri's three private Medicaid managed-care insurers ran 8.17 percent administrative overhead in fiscal year 2024, well above the roughly 1 to 3 percent the state spends administering medically complex Medicaid populations directly, as Missouri faces a $1 billion federal penalty risk starting October 2029 if it cannot cut its Medicaid error rate below 3 percent

About 50 percent of cardiology practices are private-equity owned; integrated median compensation crossed $700,000 versus $588,479 private

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ICD facility fees ranged from $6,674 to $36,269 across four major insurers, a greater than five-fold spread

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CMS's July 2026 settlement results credit ACO REACH with $988.3 million in net savings for performance year 2024, while the agency's own third independent evaluation, using a comparison-group methodology, found net Medicare spending under the model still rose, 0.2 percent in 2024 after 0.8 percent in 2023.

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Employers now fund 60 percent of active direct primary care memberships, the majority for the first time, as DPC membership grew 837 percent from 2017 to 2025.

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Georgia's Medicaid program overpaid clinical diagnostic laboratories $26.1 million, of which $18.5 million is the federal share, on 648,412 of 13,603,258 lab services performed from 2019 through 2023

Hospice of the Valley, West owes at least $8.6 million in Medicare overpayments, based on a sample of 100 claims from July 2020 to June 2022 that found 15 errors worth $69,184, extrapolated across roughly $86 million in Medicare payments; the hospice did not concur with any of OIG's three recommendations.

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AHRQ has spent under $15 million of its $345 million appropriation this fiscal year, halted at least 104 patient-safety grants, and cut staff from about 300 to 74, prompting a lawsuit from the Society for General Internal Medicine

96.5 percent of independent pharmacists said Medicare Part D reimbursement threatens the viability of their business, and 30.3 percent said they were considering closing within the year

A ransomware attack between October 5 and 10, 2025 exposed the personal and health information of more than 442,000 patients nationwide, with patient notification only beginning nine months later on July 21, 2026

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CMS's ACO REACH settlement results report $988.3 million in net savings for performance year 2024, while CMS's own independent evaluation of performance year 2023 found net Medicare spending rose 0.8 percent under a different methodology.

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Decentralized clinical trial platforms have raised more than $650 million in funding, led by Medable, as AI tools are pitched to fix low enrollment and trial delays in an $8.5 billion market.

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Healthcare M&A deal count fell 23 percent year over year in Q2 2026 even as disclosed dollar volume more than tripled to $95.3 billion.

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OB/GYN liability insurance premiums rose for a 7th consecutive year, reaching $243,988 in Miami-Dade County and $159,537 in Connecticut for 2025, with career-lifetime OB/GYN malpractice claim rates around 60 percent

An estimated 20 million Americans owe medical debt, including roughly 14 million who owe more than 1,000 dollars each, while the healthcare buy now pay later financing market is projected to grow from 6.14 billion dollars in 2026 to 17.89 billion dollars by 2034.

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Medical outpatient building M&A activity fell 26 percent in Q2 2026 to 51 publicly announced transactions, with disclosed dollar volume dropping to $272.1 million across 13 priced deals from $927 million across 34 priced deals in Q1 2026

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US dialysis facility opening to closure ratio fell from 8.9 in 2018 to 0.8 in 2024, with closures concentrated in rural, smaller, and dual Medicare-Medicaid eligible heavy clinics

39.9 percent of reported medical liability premiums rose in 2025, the seventh consecutive year of increases, as nuclear jury verdicts against hospitals and health systems continue to climb

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Renegotiating 2027 merged-market rate requests with seven insurers and rejecting one outright saved an estimated 72 million dollars for about 670,000 residents and businesses

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State Medicaid managed care contracts vary widely in fraud referral deadlines, ranging from 1 to 270 days or no deadline at all, with inconsistent consequences for noncompliance

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The median ASC transaction multiple reached 7.9 times EBITDA in 2025, the highest level VMG has tracked in at least eight years

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Ransomware attacks on healthcare linked organizations rose 14 percent to 410 in the first half of 2026, with attacks on healthcare businesses, drugmakers, device makers and billing vendors up nearly 35 percent, outpacing the 3 percent rise in attacks on hospitals and direct care providers.

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Upgraded Delta Dental of California's Financial Strength Rating to A+ from A and Long-Term Issuer Credit Rating to aa- from a+, stable outlook

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The national hospice live-discharge rate is 19.1%, the baseline CMS uses as an automated fraud screen, while suspended California hospices received letters citing rates in the mid-50s to 64%.

More than 500 US healthcare facilities, including hospitals, hospice and home health providers, now operate through joint ventures between private equity firms and nonprofit health systems; 21.4% of PE-owned hospitals use such structures, and Apollo-owned LifePoint Health runs 61% of its hospitals as joint ventures

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Home-based care M&A volume fell to 16 closed deals in Q2 2026, down 41% from Q1 2026's 27 deals and 45% from Q2 2025's 29 deals.

76 of 85 comparative analyses requested from health plans received an insufficiency letter on first submission, an 89 percent failure rate, per the fourth annual MHPAEA report to Congress covering August 2023 through July 2025

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Cardinal Health, Cencora and McKesson have collectively spent more than 16 billion dollars since 2013 acquiring or taking stakes in management services organizations that run physician practices, concentrated in oncology, gastroenterology, ophthalmology and urology, with most of that spending landing between 2023 and 2025.

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Colorado did not verify that all Medicaid personal care services visits were recorded in its electronic visit verification system before submitting reimbursement claims, resulting in improper payments

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Novitas Solutions improperly paid Medicare Part B claims for evaluation and management, psychotherapy, podiatry and wound care services to nursing home residents, with a 60.7 percent error rate on sampled claims

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State contracts with Medicaid managed care organizations set widely varying fraud referral deadlines, from 1 to 270 days, with many states imposing no consequence for missed deadlines or training on proper referrals

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68.5 percent of US counties (50.8 million people) had no radiation oncology treatment site as of 2025, with 13.6 percent of counties experiencing a net loss of sites since 2018 concentrated in poorer, more rural, higher uninsured areas.

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Commercial facility fee payments for implantable cardioverter defibrillator insertion ranged from a median of 6,674 dollars under Aetna to 36,269 dollars under UnitedHealthcare across four major national insurers, a more than fivefold difference for the same procedure.

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Cardiovascular services is one of the two most sought after physician specialties for deal activity in the second half of 2026, even as MedAxiom's CEO argues private equity's actual footprint in cardiology remains smaller than commonly portrayed.

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US digital health startups raised 7.4 billion dollars across 244 deals in H1 2026, but 115 corporate acquisitions closed, 71 in the second quarter alone, the busiest quarter for digital health M&A since 2021; mega deals of 100 million dollars or more were 8 percent of financings but absorbed 45 percent of capital.

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Medical professional liability insurers posted a $712 million combined underwriting loss in 2025, up from $546 million in 2024, even as direct premiums written grew 3.6 percent to $9.4 billion and favorable reserve development shrank to $155 million

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A federally qualified health center's produce box and voucher program for chronically ill, low-income patients does not trigger sanctions under the Anti-Kickback Statute or Civil Monetary Penalties Law

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53 of the nation's 55 organ procurement organizations proposed an eight-measure quality framework, covering referral rate, approach rate, authorization rate, donation rate, donor management, organs recovered per donor, organ utilization rate, and safety, to replace CMS's current two-metric decertification system, arguing the current metrics do not account for regional differences.

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The share of clinicians using AI tools to draft medical notes or generate insurance billing codes grew from 21 percent to 28 percent in two years, and GAO warned that unverified AI errors could trigger patient harm or over- and under-billing, while independent verification of these tools' accuracy remains limited.

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Hospital and health system M&A hit 18 deals in Q2 2026, more than double the 8 a year earlier, with transacted revenue rising to $7.7 billion from $1.4 billion, the lowest Q2 total since at least 2018.

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Pennsylvania's new state budget uses a 'cycle roll' accounting maneuver that delays roughly $2.6 billion in Medicaid managed care payments over two years without setting a repayment date, which the IFO warns could strain managed care organizations' cash flow.

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Specialty drugs, led by GLP-1 weight loss and diabetes medicines, now account for 60 percent or more of total drug spending at many employer health plans.

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CMS lacks sufficient controls to verify consumer authorization for agent and broker enrollment or plan changes; confirmed unauthorized-enrollment complaints grew more than fourfold since 2023, and at least 160,000 federal marketplace applications in plan year 2024 had likely unauthorized changes

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Prior authorization delayed elective spine surgery without producing payer cost savings, and 80 percent of denials examined were reversed on appeal

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US digital health startups raised $7.4 billion across 244 deals in H1 2026; mega-deals of $100 million or more captured 45% of the capital in just 8% of the deals; 115 digital-health M&A exits closed, concentrated in revenue cycle management and metabolic health

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CONMED is reportedly working with advisers on a possible sale after drawing private equity takeover interest; no bidders or formal process have been disclosed and CONMED has not confirmed a sale is underway

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Hospital M&A had its strongest second quarter since 2018, with 18 transactions and $7.7 billion in transacted revenue, more than five times the $1.4 billion recorded a year earlier; nearly all buyers were nonprofit systems rather than private equity or for-profit chains

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Practice turnover among radiologists rose 61% from 2013 to 2022, with job change likelihood climbing fastest at 12,940 annual wRVUs overall, 13,380 for non academic radiologists and 8,820 for academic radiologists

Recovered or saved $5.56 billion from Medicare and Medicaid over six months (Oct 2025 to Mar 2026), a $12.70 return per dollar spent, built on 604 criminal and civil actions and 1,212 exclusions from federal health programs

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Providers win 88% of No Surprises Act IDR disputes with 87% of awards exceeding the qualifying payment amount; Radiology Partners posted a median prevailing offer of 631% of QPA in H1 2024, and new batching rules effective May 2026 lower per claim administrative fees

All eight of Astrana Health's Medicare ACOs (five in the Medicare Shared Savings Program, three in ACO REACH) generated both net and gross shared savings for the 2024 performance year

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2024 median total compensation for hospital-integrated cardiologists topped $700,000 for the first time while private-practice cardiologists fell to a median of $588,479, a $112,475 gap, the widest in more than five years

Close to 50 percent of private-practice cardiology groups now have private equity ownership, up from effectively zero a few years ago; separately Humana expanded value-based cardiology partnerships to four platforms for Medicare Advantage members

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ACA marketplace insurers are asking for a median 14 percent premium increase for 2027, the second straight year of double-digit hikes, driven by a median 10 percent medical trend plus GLP-1 drug utilization, provider labor costs, and the healthier-enrollee exodus following the end of enhanced premium tax credits

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H1 2026 digital health funding held flat at 22.6 billion dollars globally across 608 rounds, down roughly half the deal count of a few years earlier, with deal count falling 38 percent as average check size climbs and capital concentrates in fewer, more mature companies

Fiscal Year 2025 Hart-Scott-Rodino annual report shows 18 merger challenges filed last year, 2,006 transactions notified with nearly 32 percent valued above 1 billion dollars, and 41 formal Second Requests issued, with healthcare named a priority sector under the FTC's Healthcare Task Force

Medicare and Medicaid spent about $12 billion on assisted living in 2024, while Medicaid still cannot pay the room and board that keeps most seniors out of nursing homes

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