CEO Update 262
Please View our 2026 Annual Meeting Program!
The 2026 Annual Meeting – Future-Forward Leadership: Imagine. Innovate. Transform. – is in a little more than two weeks, and we are eager to share this year’s Annual Meeting program!
Please join us on Day #1, Monday, March 2 to learn about effective leadership practices from former NFL wide receiver Eric Boles, founder and CEO of The Game Changers, and on Day #2 to hear from two-time Pulitzer-Prize finalist and CNN political analyst Ron Brownstein and award-winning author and blogger Neil Pasricha. Learn more about our speakers here.
You also won’t want to miss our new breakout sessions on Tuesday, March 3 and our policy breakfast featuring behavioral healthcare champion Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday, March 4.
Please visit our Annual Meeting homepage and register for the meeting if you haven’t yet. We look forward to seeing you in Washington!
Join Us for New Breakout Sessions on Day #2 of the Annual Meeting
2026 NABH Annual Meeting attendees will have their choice from among four breakout sessions on Tuesday, March 3, including two that will run concurrently from 11:15 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. ET and two that will run concurrently from 3:30 p.m. – 4:45 p.m.
NABH members determined the topics for these sessions through a member poll in CEO Update late last year. The session topics include: 1) innovative approaches to outpatient care, 2) payor issues, 3) policy (focused on Medicaid), and 4) quality (focused on NABH’s new quality initiative).
There’s no need to register separately for these breakout sessions. Please join us!
CMS Finalizes Medicaid Provider Tax Rule
CMS finalized a rule on Jan. 29 to implement the Working Families Tax Cut (WFTC, also known as H.R. 1) legislation’s provider taxes provision.
Every state except Alaska use provider taxes – taxes and assessments on hospitals, Medicaid managed care plans, and other providers – to finance a portion of their share of their Medicaid program. CMS’ new rule provides greater detail on the provision prohibiting certain provider taxes that states use to support their Medicaid programs.
The rule prohibits higher tax rates on Medicaid than on non-Medicaid businesses, changing the way some states have applied the taxes. The rule also bars using vague language or complex designs to disguise taxes that target Medicaid.
CMS provides states with a transition period of at least until the end of calendar year 2026 to comply with the new provider tax rules but will vary the length of such transition periods by the type of provider subject to the taxes and by how recently such uniformity waivers were approved or renewed.
For prohibited taxes on providers including hospitals, CMS said the transition period will be through the end of each state’s fiscal year 2028 with the state needing to comply by the start of the 2029 state fiscal year.
SAMHSA’s GAINS Center to Host Webinar on Improving Efficiency and Coordination of Hospital-Based Competence Restoration
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration’s (SAMHSA) GAINS Center will host The Virginia Model: Improving Efficiency and Coordination of Hospital-Based Competence Restoration to highlight how Virginia has implemented practical, hospital-based strategies to better manage patient flow, reduce wait times, and optimize competence restoration services.
The 90-minute webinar is scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 25 starting at 3 p.m. ET. Click here to learn more and register.
Coalition to Strengthen America’s Healthcare Intensifies Messaging About Insurer Practices in New Ad
The Coalition to Strengthen America’s Healthcare has released a new digital advertisement highlighting harmful insurer practices that delay patients’ access to care, create more administrative burden for providers, and increase costs for all Americans.
NABH serves on the board of the Coalition, which will run the ad in the coming weeks across digital streaming platforms HBO Max, Amazon Prime, YouTube TV, and Spotify video and will target key policymakers and healthcare influencers inside the Beltway.
Fact of the Week
The American Psychiatric Association recently outlined its approach for revising the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders APA in a series of articles in The American Journal of Psychiatry.
For questions or comments about this CEO Update, please contact Jessica Zigmond.