�������ýҕ�l

Kaiser Permanente mental health therapists across Northern California and the Central Valley have voted overwhelmingly to authorize a one-day unfair labor practice strike, just as the health system’s largest union ended a historic four-week walkout. The National Union of Healthcare Workers said Monday that 92% of participating members backed the strike authorization. The vote covers about 2,400 therapists, social workers and psychologists who provide care in the Bay Area, Sacramento and the Central Valley. (Vaziri, 2/23)

An estimated 31,000 registered nurses and other front-line Kaiser Permanente health care workers will return to work on Tuesday after a four-week strike in California and Hawaii to demand better wages and staffing. The United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals said in a statement Monday that “significant movement at the bargaining table” prompted an end to the walkout. The statement didn’t offer more specifics. (Weber, 2/24)

CVS Health Corp. increased bonuses for regular corporate employees as new executives grew profitability, fixing some of the challenges that had previously dragged down the company’s Aetna insurance unit. Bonuses for 2025 will be 42.3% above baseline levels, according to records reviewed by Bloomberg News. That’s a drastic reversal from last year, when bonuses were more than 60% below targets. (Swetlitz, 2/23)

Private equity firm Kinderhook Industries has inked a $1.1 billion deal to acquire Enhabit Home Health and Hospice. Enhabit is one of the nation’s largest home care providers, with 376 locations across 34 states. It was a unit of Encompass Health until its spinoff in 2022. Under terms of the definitive agreement, Kinderhook would pay stockholders $13.80 per share for Dallas-based Enhabit, the home care company said Monday. (Eastabrook, 2/23)

Health plans are strategically implementing artificial intelligence agents to manage member services. At the ViVE 2026 conference in Los Angeles, health plan leaders from Clever Care Health Plan and Medical Mutual of Ohio detailed the ways their organizations have been able to handle call volume and engage members. (Famakinwa, 2/23)

Two decades ago, futurist Ray Kurzweil laid out a bold vision for next-generation medicine in his book “The Singularity Is Near.” Technology, he predicted, could one day help doctors eradicate disease by anticipating and responding to it in real time. (Ravindranath, 2/24)

Providers and health insurance companies are accusing each other of gaming the No Surprises Act of 2020, sometimes pulling patients back into the middle of billing disputes the law was meant to prevent. Physician groups, hospitals and air ambulance companies have flooded third-party mediators with millions of claims seeking higher reimbursement from insurers for out-of-network care. Providers argue insurers’ flawed reimbursement methodology is decreasing payment and forcing them to seek arbitration, while insurers contend providers are committing fraud by submitting ineligible claims. (Kacik and Tepper, 2/23)