Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1479669
32 CEO / STRATEGY Biden signs Inflation Reduction Act into law: 7 healthcare takeaways By Molly Gamble P resident Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law Aug. 16. e sweeping $739 billion reconciliation package contains a number of significant healthcare provisions. During the signing ceremony in the State Dining Room, the president described the IRA as "one of the most significant laws in our history" and with its enactment "the American people won and special interests lost." Here are seven healthcare takeaways from the IRA: 1. Under the IRA, Medicare Parts B and D gain negotiation powers that will apply to the price of a limited number of drugs with no generic or biosimilar competition. Starting in 2026, 10 drugs will be eligible for negotiations. Eligibility expands to 20 drugs by 2029. 2. e law ends a 19-year-old ban on Medicare from negotiating the price of prescription medicines with manufacturers. e government was prohibited from directly negotiating drug prices in Medicare Part D, the prescription drug coverage program created in 2003. 3. Starting in 2023, the IRA limits out-of-pocket spending on insulin products in Medicare Part D to $35 per month. It also eliminates cost-sharing for adult vaccines under Medicare Part D and under Medicaid. 4. Effective in 2024, the IRA eliminates the 5 percent cost-sharing in the catastrophic phase of Medicare Part D, which kicks in aer enrollees reach $7,050 in out-of-pocket costs for covered drugs. Effective in 2025, the law caps patients' out-of-pocket costs in Part D at $2,000. 5. e IRA institutes inflation caps in Medicare Part D that limit price increases for drugs year over year. Drugmakers face tax penalties if their price increases to prescription drugs in Medicare outpace the rate of inflation. 6. e law includes a cap in Part D premium cost growth at 6 percent from 2024 to 2029 to prevent large premium increases. 7. Premium subsidies in the ACA marketplaces that were increased by the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act were set to expire at the end of 2022. e IRA extends the subsidies through 2025, which will prevent millions of people from losing coverage and seeing increases to their premiums. n Intermountain names interim CEO By Kelly Gooch L ydia Jumonville was named interim president and CEO of Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Healthcare. The health system announced the appointment Aug. 19, about a week after announcing the departure of Marc Harrison, MD. Dr. Harrison, who became president and CEO of Intermountain in 2016, accepted a role to run a healthcare platform business for General Catalyst. Ms. Jumonville served as president and CEO of Broomfield, Colo.-based SCL Health from 2017-2022 before the organization merged with Intermountain in April, according to an Aug. 19 news release. Earlier in her career, she was executive vice president and CFO of SCL Health. She also spent about a decade as CFO of Dallas-based Baylor Health Care System, which combined with Scott & White Healthcare in 2013 to form Baylor Scott & White Health. The leadership change at Intermountain takes effect Aug. 22, according to the release. n Delayed patient care driving 'unsustainable financial challenges' for hospitals, report says By Andrew Cass D eferred care due to the COVID-19 pandemic has led to increased patient acuity and driven "unsustainable financial challenges," according to an August 15 report from the American Hospital Association. "Hospitals need additional federal support to address these financial challenges and advance the health of their patients and communities," the group stated in the report. Three things to know: 1. Overall patient acuity has increased each year since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the report. Overall patient acuity, as measured by the average length of stay, was up nearly 10 percent between 2019 and 2021. 2. The average length of stay was up 6 percent between 2019 and 2021 for Medicare fee-for-service patients in the hospital for reasons other than COVID-19, the report stated. 3. Increased patient acuity is a key driver of increased labor, drug and supply costs for hospitals, according to the report. n