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Physicians would see a small Medicare pay cut next year under a proposed rule the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued Tuesday. The conversion factor of the Physician Fee Schedule — the key multiplier that determines payment amounts for specific services — would decline 1.7% to $32.84 for most doctors and 1.2% to $33.17 for physicians participating in Medicare’s advanced alternative payment models. This partly reflects the expiration of a one-year reimbursement bump enacted in President Donald Trump’s tax law. (Young, 7/14)

UW Health has entered a definitive agreement to buy a Wisconsin medical center from Sanford Health’s Marshfield Clinic region. The acquisition of Marshfield Medical Center-Beaver Dam is slated to close by November, a Sanford spokesperson said. Financial details and agreement terms were not disclosed. (DeSilva, 7/14)

Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare estimates changes to the ACA environment will cost it from $1 billion to $1.2 billion in 2026, up significantly from an April estimate of $600 million to $900 million, according to July 14 preliminary financial results. The hit is partly offset by a Medicaid Supplemental Payment Programs reversal, which HCA expects to add $300 million to $500 million in revenue, versus a loss of $50 million to $250 million this year. (Scheetz, 7/14)

Healthcare payers, including the federal government, aren't investing enough in primary care, said experts during a conference sponsored by the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) on Tuesday. Without that investment, there are "consequences in terms of [detecting] disease and initiating lifestyle change, and consequences in the chronic disease burden that we see in America," including obesity, said Abe Sutton, director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. (Frieden, 7/14)

A yearly physical is the standard preventive measure for adults, but many Gen Z patients are forgoing regular doctor appointments. More than 1 in 4 young adults don’t have a primary care provider, according to a recent national survey by the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. (Galinato, 7/14)

Before she went into surgery, Elizabeth Wehrle knew that doctors wanted to transplant four new organs into her body. She didn’t know, at the time, that the operation at Northwestern Memorial Hospital was potentially the first of its kind in the country — a quadruple-organ transplant performed on a person who had already had a previous lung transplant. (Schencker, 7/14)

Fewer patients went to US emergency departments (EDs) because of infections with a dangerous bacterium called Clostridioides difficile, or C difficile, from 2014 to 2024, according to a study last week in the American Journal of Infection Control. C difficile infection (CDI), which causes severe, watery diarrhea and inflammation of the colon, can be deadly. Doctors diagnose almost half a million cases a year. Most infections occur while or after taking antibiotics. (Szabo, 7/14)

Leonard Abramson, a former pharmacist who built U.S. Healthcare, one of the first health maintenance organizations, and who used some of the nearly $1 billion he received from selling it to give generously to cancer research and other medical causes, died on July 4 at his home in Blue Bell, Pa. He was 93. His daughter Judith Abramson Felgoise confirmed the death.Mr. Abramson started U.S. Healthcare at the right time: two years after the passage of the Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973, which encouraged the growth of H.M.O.s to fight spiraling medical costs. (Sandomir, 7/14)

Dr. Joseph F. Fraumeni Jr., who helped discover one of the first examples of a cancer linked to a human gene, paving the way for a field that has so far seen the discovery of more than 120 genes that predispose people to cancer, died on June 22 in McLean, Va. He was 93. His death, at a skilled nursing facility, was confirmed by Holly Fraumeni, his niece. (Gabriel, 7/9)