FTC To Health Care Employers: Review Your Noncompete Agreements
The Federal Trade Commission sent letters warning large employers and firms to make sure any noncompetes are not overly broad or anticompetitive. Other industry news covers the rising share of doctors who belong to unions, CMS' Medicare Plan Finder tool, robotic intubation, and more.
Fierce Healthcare:
FTC Warns Healthcare Employers, Staffers To Review Noncompetes
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairman Andrew Ferguson sent letters to "several large healthcare employers and staffing firms" Wednesday suggesting they review their employment contracts for any noncompete agreements that are overly broad or anticompetitive. The letters were sent to an undisclosed number of unnamed companies, and were intended as a broad warning rather than a suggestion that the recipients had engaged in illegal conduct. (Muoio, 9/10)
More health care industry updates —
Phys.org:
Doctors Are Joining Unions In A Bid To Improve Working Conditions And Raise Wages In A Stressful Health Care System
The share of doctors who belong to unions is rising quickly at a time when organized labor is losing ground with other professions. The Conversation U.S. asked Patrick Aguilar, a Washington University in St. Louis pulmonologist and management professor, to explain why the number of physicians joining unions is growing—a trend that appears likely to continue. (Aguilar, 9/10)
Modern Healthcare:
Healthcare Compensation Is Up In 2025. Here’s What To Know
Hospitals and health systems are rethinking compensation and staffing as they navigate financial challenges, and it’s not nurses but other employees who are seeing sizable pay bumps. The median national wage increase across all healthcare jobs for 2025 is 4.3%, up significantly from 2.7% in 2024, according to a recent survey by healthcare consultant SullivanCotter. (DeSilva, 9/10)
Modern Healthcare:
CMS' Medicare Plan Finder Updates Push Insurers To Revise Plans
A little over a month before the annual enrollment period, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is urging Medicare Advantage insurers to make significant changes to how they present their offerings to beneficiaries. Perhaps most notably, CMS will incorporate provider network lists into the Medicare Plan Finder tool enrollees use to select plans, it notified insurers last month. The agency is simultaneously developing a national provider directory that will not be ready in time for the 2026 Medicare Advantage and Part D sign-up campaign, which runs Oct. 15-Dec. 7. (Tepper, 9/10)
Modern Healthcare:
Kaiser Permanente, Renown Health Form Joint Venture
Kaiser Permanente and Renown Health signed an agreement to form a joint venture to operate a health plan and ambulatory care services in Nevada. As part of the deal, Kaiser would acquire a majority stake in Renown’s insurance arm, Hometown Health, which has more than 73,000 members. Kaiser plans to start offering health plan coverage in northern Nevada as Kaiser Permanente Nevada with an open enrollment period late next year, according to a Wednesday news release. (Hudson, 9/10)
Modern Healthcare:
Oracle Highlights New AI Tools For Hospitals, Take Aim At Epic
Oracle unveiled new artificial intelligence tools for hospitals on Wednesday, capping a memorable month for the company that included layoffs and a strong earnings report. The company announced an AI-enabled patient portal to kick off its annual healthcare-focused event, held this year in Orlando. A keynote address by OpenAI’s Dr. Nate Gross, who joined the AI company in August, highlighted how the two companies are strategizing around AI in healthcare. (Perna, 9/10)
ProPublica:
After Highmark BCBS Repeatedly Denied Their Claims, One Psychiatrist Was Their Last Hope
The email took Dr. Neal Goldenberg by surprise in a way that few things still do. As a psychiatrist, he had grown accustomed to seeing patients in their darkest moments. As someone who reviewed insurance denials, he was also well-versed in the arguments that hospitals make to try to overturn an insurer’s decision not to pay for treatment. (Eldeib, 9/10)
In pharma and tech developments —
Stat:
Child Dies After Receiving New Experimental Gene Therapy
The first child to receive a new experimental gene therapy for a rare neurological disorder died a few days after dosing, the company sponsoring that trial said Wednesday. The company, Capsida Biotherapeutics, is one of a group of companies and labs engineering new viruses potentially capable of safely ferrying genes deep into the brain. Its first effort was designed to treat STXBP1 encephalopathy, a condition that can cause seizures, developmental delays, and other symptoms. (Mast, 9/10)
FiercePharma:
J&J's Intravesical Bladder Cancer Therapy Inlexzo Lands FDA Nod
The FDA has signed off on Johnson & Johnson’s highly anticipated bladder cancer drug Inlexzo, marking an advance in the ability to care for patients who otherwise face bladder removal and limited treatment options. Inlexzo, previously called TAR-200, can now treat patients with Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG)-unresponsive high-risk non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) with carcinoma in situ (CIS), with or without papillary tumors. (Becker, 9/10)
Stat:
Study: Robotic Device Could Make Intubation Faster In Emergencies
It’s a long-standing challenge for first responders: Opening the airways of critically injured patients struggling to breathe often takes multiple attempts, costing crucial seconds. The problem caught David Haggerty’s attention when he was a graduate student, and he set out to see if he could make the rescue procedure, called intubation, easier. In a paper published Wednesday, Haggerty and a research team led by the University of California, Santa Barbara, described a robotic device they say has the potential to be faster and more reliable. (Wosen, 9/10)
