• 5/07 - Orange County ZOOM Table - Discussion Topic: "Surviving Uncertain Times" - Featuring an Extended Member Discussion
• 5/15 - Bay Area ZOOM Table - Discussion Topic: "Still Keeping Seniors Dancing for > 50 Years" - Featuring Grace Li, CEO, On Lok
• 5/16 - Los Angeles ZOOM Table - Discussion Topic: "Lessons from Partnering with Larger Partners" - Featuring Bob Rose, Rose Strategic Partners


• 5/21 - Membership-wide IN-PERSON EVENT (in OC, 9 am - 3 pm):
  "PUTTING AI AGENTS TO WORK PROFITABLY!" At warp speed, AI has become the most significant technology advance in our generation. Plus, it's taking us to new heights of profitability. Our five speakers are not just using AI, they're profiting from it - and YOU will learn how too, when you hear from the Event's Human Speakers pictured below. ABL Members, Look For Your Emailed Invitation and RSVP ASAP!

• Alameda Health System (Dave Sayen) & St. Rose Hospital Celebrate Affiliation + AHS Expands Services
• Angle Health (Andy Leeka) Named to "Greatest Startup Workplaces 2025" by Newsweek
• Choice in Aging (Debbie Toth) Co-Sponsors "Generations of Strength" Summit
• Donor Network West's Janice Whaley, Ph.D., Spotlighted in Recent Interview & Award Nomination. PLUS, DNW & Royal Ambulance (Steve Grau) Honor Their 10-Year Partnership
• El Camino Health (Cecile Currier) Breaks Ground on New Inpatient Rehabilitation Facility
• FOMAT Medical Research (Nick Focil) Discusses Hispanic Community in Clinical Trials; Endocrine-Related Cancers; Gut Health + More
• iMediSync (Dave Berkus) Offers Webinar & Articles on EEG, QEEG & Personalized Rx Treatments
• Leech Tishman Nelson Hardiman (Harry Nelson, JD) Merger Highlighted in LA Times + Watch Webinar on "Arbitration, Retaliation, and Protected Workplace Activity"
• Life Adjustment Team (Cynthia Sampson) Provides Insights on Intensive Outpatient Care, Partial Hospitalization, Understanding Schizophrenia, & Depression Among Young Adults
• Makani Science (Greg Buchert, MD) Receives FDA Clearance for Groundbreaking Respiratory Monitor
• MedWand Solutions (Todd Cornell), TruMerit & Society for Family Health Rwanda Partner to Reshape Primary Healthcare in Rwanda
• On Lok (Grace Li) Joins PACE Colleagues for Advocacy Day in Sacramento + Featured in San Francisco Chronical
• Pangea Laboratory (Yap Ching Chew, Ph.D.) Announces Clinical Trial for Bladder CARE, While Zymo Research Debuts Green DNA/RNA Dry Transport System & BioFestival at CalTech
• Patient Care America (Bob Funari) Publishes Study Demonstrating Efficacy & Safety of IDPN
• Sheppard Mullin (Linda Igarashi) Ranks Among the 2025 Largest Healthcare Law Firms + Provides Articles on Healthcare Law Issues

• Eckert & Ziegler (Frank Yeager) Inks Supply Agreements with Actinium Pharmaceuticals & AtomVie Global Radiopharma

Eckert & Ziegler SE (EZ) and Actinium Pharmaceuticals have entered into an agreement by which Actinium will have access to EZ's high-purity Actinium-225 (Ac-225) to further develop its promising lead product Actimab-A, as well as additional early and late-stage development candidates for clinical trials. Targeted radiotherapies using Ac-225 have shown great promise in the treatment of cancer.
AND, EZ and AtomVie Global Radiopharma announced a global supply agreement in which EZ will provide its high-quality non-carrier added Lutetium-177 chloride to support AtomVie's CDMO activities for radiopharmaceutical manufacturing. (FRI)

Aetna will exit the individual markets in 2026, less than five years after making a return to this space. The insurer's parent company, CVS Health, released its first-quarter earnings report Thursday morning, noting that Aetna would withdraw from the Affordable Care Act's exchanges where it independently operates plans in a move to improve business performance. "This decision is consistent with others taken this year to focus the company's portfolio," according to the filing. "The company is best able to serve members through its other health benefit solutions, which offer access to quality care, affordable health benefits and exceptional service." (Fierce Healthcare)

Publicly traded health insurance companies spent at least $3.3 million on personal security for top executives in 2024, mostly within the 27 days following the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Dec. 4. UHC reported spending $1.7 million protecting its C-suite in 2024; in 2023, UHC did not report spending any money on personal security costs for its executives. Other health plans spent in the hundreds of thousands on 2024 security, up dramatically from amounts spent in 2023. ALSO, health systems are ramping up security in response to rising workplace violence, investing millions in weapons detection, staffing, and risk mitigation, according to a Modern Healthcare article that quoted executives from several large systems which details a shift from viewing security as a budgetary burden to recognizing it as an operational priority. (Modern Healthcare; Sherwood News; OR Manager)

Luigi Mangione has pleaded not guilty to federal stalking and murder charges in connection with the Dec. 4 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. If convicted, he could be sentenced to death. A federal grand jury indicted Mangione on four charges, including two counts of stalking, one count of murder through use of a firearm and a firearms offense for an allegation that he used a silencer. The next hearing date in Mangione's federal case is scheduled for Dec. 5, at which a trial date will be determined. Mangione is also facing state charges in New York and Pennsylvania. Defense attorneys have asked for Mangione's federal case to go to trial first due to it carrying the possibility of a death sentence. (NBC News)

Adults younger than 35 are increasingly seeking medical advice from family, friends and the internet instead of healthcare professionals, according to an April 24 report from Edelman, based on survey insights from 16,000+ respondents across 16 countries. Key findings include:
> 38% of adults ages 18 to 34 said they turned to social media over medical professionals - a 12% increase from the year prior.
> 45% of the respondents among adults ages 18 to 34 said they've ignored advice from a healthcare professional in favor of input from friends or family - up 13% from 2024.
> Among respondents who regularly visit a healthcare provider, 53% said they believe their clinician is "slightly or not qualified" to address their full range of health issues. Family and friends, online searches and social media were cited as the most common supplemental sources for healthcare information. (Becker's Hospital Review)

Births in the U.S. increased by just 1 percent in 2024, still near the record low rates that have alarmed demographers and become a central part of the Trump administration's cultural agenda, according to data released by the CDC. More than 3.6 million babies were born in the U.S. last year, a meager rise from the record-setting low in 2023. The fertility rate, approximately 1.6 births per woman over her lifetime, is well below the 2.1 births needed to maintain the country's population through births alone. (New York Times)

Heavy drinking is associated with increased risk of a type of brain injury linked with memory and thinking problems - according to a new study in which researchers defined heavy drinking as eight or more alcoholic drinks per week. This study, published in the journal Neurology, comes when clinicians and public health advocates are raising awareness of alcohol use disorder and issues related to excessive alcohol consumption. (CNN)

A recent opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal - How to Lead a Chronic Disease Revolution - reports that evidence increasingly suggests that infections play a critical role in triggering or exacerbating many chronic diseases - diabetes, multiple sclerosis, neurodegenerative and cardiovascular disease. For example, a large-scale study in Nature found that the shingles vaccine reduced the risk of developing dementia by 20%, suggesting that varicella zoster virus reactivation plays a critical role in neurodegenerative diseases. The article's co-authors, Akiko Iwasaki, an immunology professor, and Dr. Harlan Krumholz, a cardiologist at Yale School of Medicine, suggest that the U.S. needs a comprehensive national initiative to map, model and mitigate postinfection syndromes as well as tackle chronic diseases by addressing their infectious root causes. (Wall Street Journal)

Eli Lilly CEO Dave Ricks recently vowed that the pharmaceutical giant would manufacture its experimental weight-loss pill in the U.S. amid President Trump's reshoring push. Lilly's new treatment, an oral GLP-1 receptor agonist called orforglipron, recently cleared a late-stage clinical trial. The latest data showed "statistically significant efficacy results" and a safety profile consistent with injectable obesity drugs already on the market. Orforglipron is seen as an answer to Novo's wildly popular injectables Ozempic and Wegovy injectables, which are approved for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes and chronic weight management, respectively. Orforglipron has four more Phase 3 trials to go. Lilly said it expects to file for regulatory approval for it as an obesity treatment by yearend and has announced that it would build four new manufacturing plants in the U.S. (Barrons)

Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drug Co. has secured another partnership targeting the specialty pharmaceutical market, according to a recent news release. EverPharm, a specialty unit-dose medication company, is joining its portfolio with Cost Plus Drugs' pricing model, which is the drug's manufacturing cost plus a 15% markup and a $10 shipping and labor fee. On April 16, Cost Plus Drugs launched a similar partnership with Morris & Dickson, a full-line and specialty pharmaceutical distributor. The partnership with EverPharm will roll out in phases, the release said, with an initial focus on offering key unit-dose medicines to pharmacies and healthcare providers through the Cost Plus Marketplace. (Becker's Hospital Review)

A recent opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal - The Bitter Pill of Reliance on China - reports that nearly half of generic active pharmaceutical ingredients consumed in the U.S. originate in China, and more than 100 of these can be sourced only in China. The threat isn't solely in generic pharmaceuticals, but increasingly in higher-end medicines. China is in the midst of a gold rush of breakthroughs and drug discoveries, which the Journal's David Wainer has characterized as the Chinese biotech industry's "DeepSeek moment." (Wall Street Journal)

New cancer research pioneered by points to a strong alternative to chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation for some forms of cancer, according to Memorial Sloan Kettering.. Nearly 80% of patients who suffered from a variety of cancer types were successfully treated with only immunotherapy, according to MSK's new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The immunotherapy protocol successfully treated 100% of rectal cancer patients involved in the trial, with tumors ranging from stage 1 to stage 3. The tumors also had a genetic mutation called mismatch repair-deficient, which makes them particularly vulnerable to a type of immunotherapy called "checkpoint inhibitors." This therapy "unmasks" tumor cells, MSK stated, making it easier for the patient's own immune system to recognize and kill cancer cells. (New York Post)

FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said he has no plans to change government policy on the abortion pill mifepristone, a hot-button issue in the US since the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision in 2022. Makary would reconsider the issue if new data emerged that signaled a safety issue with the drug that is now used in more than half of US abortions, he said during an appearance at the recent Semafor World Economy Summit. (KFF News)

The U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has imposed new restrictions on federal healthcare grant payments, significantly slowing the distribution of funds to health centers and other grantees, according to the Washington Post. Becker's Hospital Review further reported that DOGE has launched an initiative called "Defend the Spend," requiring all federal healthcare grant payments to undergo manual review and justification before approval - a major shift from the previous automatic system. HHS said the initiative is meant to root out fraud and abuse, asserting that "the era of rubber stamping is over." The agency emphasized that the changes would not threaten "support for critical programs." The review process has been implemented at agencies including the National Institutes of Health and the Administration for Children and Families. Federal officials say they've received inconsistent instructions and are unsure when payments will resume. According to internal briefings cited by the Washington Post, only President Trump political appointees are authorized to approve fund disbursements. Payment justifications must now show how funds align with the Trump administration's priorities. Despite DOGE's claim that the initiative promotes transparency and combats waste, the abrupt rollout has left thousands of grantees in limbo. (Becker's Hospital Review)

Becker's has published a breakdown of the 19 HHS databases and systems to which DOGE members have access, as compiled by Wired. The systems contain various protected health information, ranging from email and mailing addresses to Social Security numbers and medical notes. They are all located within CMS; National Institutes of Health; Office of the Secretary; CDC; Administration for Children & Families; and Health Resources Services Administration. (Becker's Hospital Review)

The Trump administration has selected a "famously thrifty technology entrepreneur" to lead Medicare, STAT reported. In running the Center for Medicare, Chris Klomp, will oversee payments and benefits for 68 million older adults and individuals with disabilities, at a cost of more than $1 trillion a year. While CEO of the health IT company Collective Medical, Klomp "flew bargain-priced Frontier Airlines and once boasted about sleeping in rental cars and crummy motels on business trips," STAT wrote. In his new role, Klomp "will be charged with hunting for savings in a budget of a far greater magnitude" according to the article. Decisions will include whether to rein in coding and denials practices by Medicare Advantage plans, whether to reform how Medicare pays doctors and hospitals, and whether Medicare will pay for new obesity medications. Previously, in the first Trump administration, Klomp advised the federal government on issues in health IT and the COVID-19 pandemic. (MedPage Today)

A package of California bills aiming to streamline the prior authorization process recently passed out of Senate and Assembly health committees, the California Medical Association said April 28. The four-bill "Prioritizing Patients, Empowering Physicians" package was unveiled April 10 by the CMA, state legislators and dozens of physicians. The bills are:
> SB 306: Requires health plans to remove prior authorization requirements from any service that they approve more than 90% of the time.
> AB 510: Requires that appeals of prior authorization denials be performed by a provider of the same or similar specialty.
> AB 512: Requires health plans to respond to urgent prior authorization requests within 24 hours and to nonurgent requests within 48 hours. Plans currently have 72 hours for urgent requests and five days for nonurgent requests, according to CMA.
> AB 539: Extends the validity of an approved prior authorization to one year. The current industry standard is 60 to 90 days, according to the CMA, which also wrote that the bills will next be heard in the appropriations committees in their house of origin. (Becker's Payer Issues)

A new White House directive (EO 14179) and a 25-page memorandum from the Office of Management and Budget is pushing federal agencies to rapidly scale up their use of AI in ways that improve public services and protect civil liberties. Becker's Health IT has published an article sharing key takeaways, including:
> Each agency must appoint a chief AI officer within 60 days, who will oversee adoption, compliance, and work to build an AI-ready workforce. They're encouraged to train current staff and recruit experienced AI professionals.
> Healthcare implications: "high-impact" AI use cases are subject to heightened oversight, including tools used in diagnosis, treatment decisions, health insurance eligibility, and care allocation in public programs.
> Prioritize AI tools developed in the U.S. and avoid vendor lock-in. Release custom-developed code and data assets as open source, except where security or privacy concerns apply.
> Develop formal policies for generative AI use by early 2026. (Becker's Hospital Review)

On April 11, 2025, CMS issued its annual Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment System and Long-Term Care Hospital Prospective Payment System Proposed Rule for Fiscal Year 2026. In the Proposed Rule, CMS proposes to, among other things, update the IPPS and LTCH PPS payment rates, modify the hospital wage index, and adjust the nursing and allied health payment formula. Comments to the Proposed Rule must be submitted by June 10, 2025.
IN ADDITION:
> CMS Proposes 2.8% Payment Update for Skilled Nursing Facilities.
> CMS Proposes Increases to Hospice Care Rates for FY 2026.
> CMS Issues Proposed FY 2026 PPS Rule for Inpatient Psychiatric Facilities.
> CMS Issues FY 2026 Inpatient Rehabilitation Facility Prospective Payment System and Updates to the IRF Quality Reporting Program. (King & Spalding Health Headlines)

Email: [email protected]