HIT Leaders and News

CMS and FDA RAPID: Faster Device Coverage Needs Stronger Evidence Discipline

Jason Free — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 11:41:01 +0000

The new RAPID coverage pathway from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration reflects a long-running frustration in medical technology policy: authorization and coverage are separate decisions, and patients often wait in the gap between the two.

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Agentic AI Will Replace Undocumented Science

Jason Free — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:01:43 +0000

The question raised by Cedars-Sinai about whether artificial intelligence will replace human scientists is too narrow. The more important issue is whether agentic AI will make traditional research governance obsolete before institutions are ready to replace it with something stronger.

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Brief Breaches Still Create Long Exposure

Jason Free — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:57:38 +0000

The reported cyber incident involving CareCloud should not be measured only by the roughly eight hours during which one electronic health record environment experienced partial disruption. In healthcare, the duration of unauthorized access is only one part of the risk profile.

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Oncology Breaches Turn Privacy Into Clinical Risk

Jason Free — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:51:33 +0000

The proposed $1.075 million settlement involving South Texas Oncology and Hematology is not just another data breach resolution. It is a signal that specialty healthcare providers can no longer treat cybersecurity as an IT problem that becomes visible only after a forensic investigation.

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Doctor Arrested, Accused of Health Care Fraud, Illegally Prescribing Drugs: Fraud Risk Starts With Weak Supervision

Jason Free — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:38:33 +0000

The federal indictment of a Columbia, Missouri urgent care physician should not be read only as an allegation of individual misconduct. It also is a warning about what can happen when clinical delegation, billing authority, and controlled substance prescribing operate without durable oversight.

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Drug Discovery AI Needs Better Biology

Jason Free — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 12:13:58 +0000

The latest drug-discovery AI announcement from the University of Virginia School of Medicine deserves attention, but not for the usual reason. The easy storyline is speed. The more important storyline is realism.

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HHS Announces $4 Million KidneyX EMPOWER Prize Challenge and Health Technology Project

Jason Free — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 11:49:31 +0000

The new living-donor prize challenge from the Department of Health and Human Services is a useful signal, but the signal matters more than the purse. The federal government is implicitly acknowledging that living kidney donation has not been held back by a lack of goodwill or a lack of clinical capability.

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Brace Fraud Exposes Medicare’s Order Blind Spot

Jason Free — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 11:39:51 +0000

The April 14 sentencing of a Florida nursing assistant in an $11.4 million orthotic-brace fraud scheme is easy to treat as a familiar enforcement item. According to the Department of Justice, the defendant used a Florida durable medical equipment supplier to bill Medicare for braces that beneficiaries did not request or need, while concealing true ownership and relying on illegal kickbacks to obtain signed doctors’ orders, as outlined in the April 14 sentencing announcement.

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Prior Authorization Enters Its Infrastructure Era

Jason Free — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 12:32:07 +0000

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is using its 2026 proposed rule on interoperability and drug prior authorization to do more than shorten approval timelines.

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ATA Pushes Interstate Telehealth Back Onto the Federal Agenda

Jason Free — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 21:47:53 +0000

In a March 31 announcement, the American Telemedicine Association and Johns Hopkins Medicine launched the LIFTT initiative to push for targeted federal reforms that would ease cross state telehealth barriers without displacing state licensure authority. (ATA) The announcement reads like a policy campaign, but its deeper significance is simpler.

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