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September 24, 2026

Takeaways from the most recent news in the technology and policies shaping healthcare.

Government

DOJ Accuses UCSF Medical School of Racial Discrimination

By Healthcare Technology News ·

The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division has accused the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine of discriminating on the basis of race in admissions for its incoming classes from 2023 through 2025, according to Becker's Hospital Review. The department laid out its conclusions in a formal findings letter.

The move is not isolated. It follows a series of federal findings against medical schools in the wake of the Supreme Court's 2023 decision striking down race-conscious admissions in higher education. The administration has signaled it will scrutinize how schools select students and whether diversity-focused practices cross legal lines.

In practice, medical schools now face heightened legal exposure over admissions criteria that once served to broaden the physician pipeline. The stakes reach beyond any single campus: admissions policy shapes the future clinical workforce and the diversity of physicians treating an increasingly diverse patient population. Schools should expect continued federal review and prepare to defend or revise their processes.

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Government

Experts Shift Suicide Prevention Toward Limiting Gun Access

Mental health experts are pushing suicide prevention toward broadly limiting firearm access, arguing individual risk prediction is unreliable.

Why it matters: Firearms drive most US suicide deaths, so means restriction could save more lives than screening tools that struggle to predict who is at risk.

Government

CMS Expands ACCESS Model to Four New Chronic Conditions

CMS will expand its ACCESS Model in spring 2027 to cover heart failure, COPD, substance use disorders and tobacco cessation, making most Medicare beneficiaries eligible.

Why it matters: The expansion turns a targeted outcomes-based pilot into a broad test of paying for chronic-disease results across the Medicare population.

Government

40 States Join CMS Medicaid International Drug Pricing Model

Forty states and Puerto Rico have joined CMS's new Generous Model, a Medicaid drug pricing initiative benchmarking certain drug prices to what other developed nations pay.

Why it matters: Medicaid covers about one in five Americans, so tying drug prices to international benchmarks could reshape state drug spending and industry pricing.