HHS last week issued a proposed rule that would require nursing homes to disclose whether they are owned or operated by real estate investment trusts or private equity firms, in today's bite-sized hospital and health industry news from the District of Columbia and Kentucky.

• District of Columbia: HHS last week issued a proposed rule that would require nursing homes to disclose whether they are owned or operated by real estate investment trusts or private equity firms. While nursing homes enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid are already required to disclose certain ownership and management data, they are not required to disclose other information, such as naming all businesses operating in their facilities. Under the proposed rule, nursing homes would be required to disclose additional information to provide customers with a clearer sense of who owns, manages, and operates the facilities. In addition, the proposed rule includes definitions of private equity and real estate investment trust to help determine whether nursing homes are owned by private equity investors or real estate investment trusts. In a press call, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said the draft rule provides evidence that the Biden administration is serious about reforming nursing homes, noting that he mentioned them in both of his State of the Union addresses. "We all know the COVID-19 pandemic graphically exposed long-standing systemic challenges in our nation's nursing homes," Becerra said. "One of the greatest concerns: Quality seems to be going down in some of our nursing homes, but the cost of those nursing homes continues going up." (Armour, Wall Street Journal, 2/13; Kacik, Modern Healthcare, 2/13; Pugh, Bloomberg Law, 2/13; Fraser, USA Today, 2/13; Choi, The Hill, 2/13)

• District of Columbia: A study published last week in Nature Communications found that a new male birth control drug stops sperm from maturing and swimming within 30 minutes of being injected into lab mice. Roughly two and a half hours after injection, the sperm started to regain mobility, and the mice regained full fertility after 24 hours. The drug — a soluble adenylyl cyclase inhibitor — prevents a molecular switch from turning sperm "on" and activating them to start swimming and searching for an egg to fertilize. "This innovative, on-demand, non-hormonal strategy represents a previously untested concept in contraception, which has the potential to provide equity between the sexes and, like the advent of oral birth control for women, revolutionize family planning," the study authors said. (Sforza, The Hill, 2/14; Johnson, Washington Post, 2/14)

• Kentucky: The Kentucky Supreme Court on Thursday blocked a request from abortion providers to reject the state's trigger law and six-week ban, marking the second time the state's highest court has shot down a request to block the bans. In August, the court ruled to keep the bans in place. However, the court in November agreed to hear arguments on the case. In their initial lawsuit, abortion providers argued that abortion rights were protected under the state's constitution, adding that the bans violated the provision that gives Kentuckians the "right of seeking and pursuing their safety and happiness." According to Kentucky Attorney General, Daniel Cameron, the court's decision represented a "significant victory" for the state. "We are very pleased that Kentucky's high court has allowed these laws to remain in effect while the case proceeds in circuit court," Cameron said. Meanwhile, dissents accused the court's majority of ignoring abortion providers' arguments that the bans were causing "irreparable harm" to patients. "Once again, the Kentucky Supreme Court failed to protect the health and safety of nearly a million people in the state by refusing to reinstate the lower court order blocking the law," said a joint statement from Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of abortion providers in the state. "Even after Kentuckians overwhelmingly voted against an anti-abortion ballot measure, abortion remains banned in the state." (Gonzalez, Axios, 2/16)