The week in health tech, explained in plain English.Get the free newsletter →
September 22, 2026

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

Government

Senators Press DOJ to Act on Steward CEO Contempt Case

By Healthcare Technology News ·

Members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions are demanding answers from the Justice Department on the stalled contempt case against former Steward Health Care Chairman and CEO Ralph de la Torre, MD. In an Aug. 6 letter to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, committee leaders including Chairman Bill Cassidy, MD, R-La., sought an update on the criminal contempt referral, according to Becker's Hospital Review.

De la Torre was held in contempt by the Senate after he refused to appear for a subpoenaed hearing on the financial collapse of Steward, once one of the largest for-profit hospital operators in the country. The company's bankruptcy shuttered facilities and disrupted care across multiple states.

The letter keeps pressure on the DOJ to pursue accountability and reflects lawmakers' broader focus on private equity's role in hospital finances. How the department responds could set a precedent for whether Congress can enforce its subpoenas against powerful healthcare executives.

Sources

More in Government

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.