- Florida: Last week, Florida Hospital announced an agreement with Walgreens to operate and provide services at 15 retail health clinics in the pharmacy chain's stores across the Tampa area. Walgreens will also open a pharmacy in Florida Hospital Tampa later this year. Florida Hospital is expected to officially take over the clinics' operation this summer. The clinics will be named "Florida Hospital Express Care at Walgreens" (Adventist Health System release, 1/12).
- Illinois: Justices on the Illinois Supreme Court heard a case Thursday related to whether not-for-profit hospitals should have to pay property taxes. In 2012, Illinois passed a law that said hospitals would be exempt from paying property taxes if they provided charitable services equal to or exceeding the value of their property tax liabilities. Local tax authorities argue the law is unconstitutional because it assigns a specific value to the exemption (Castellucci, Modern Healthcare, 1/12).
- Pennsylvania: CMS is partnering with Pennsylvania on the new Pennsylvania Rural Health Model, which is designed to improve care, control costs, and bolster the financial health of the state's rural hospitals. The program is scheduled to run from Jan. 12, 2017, to Dec. 31, 2023, and will allocate hospitals all-payer global budgets based on their historical net revenue. Participating hospitals must submit a quality improvement plan to Pennsylvania regulators and CMS for approval. CMS said that the goal is for hospitals to use the global budgets "to deliberately redesign the care they deliver to improve quality and meet the health needs of their local communities" (Gooch, Becker's Hospital CFO, 1/13; CMS release, 1/12).
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