Health Highlight Strategies, LLC

How Federal Rules Quietly Rewrite Your Brand and Hiring Funnel

I work in the messy space where policy meets operations. If you’re hiring, retaining, or marketing in healthcare right now, you can feel the shift. The challenge isn’t just the labor market. It’s how quickly federal rules are changing what good looks like for patients, clinicians, and the teams that connect them. None of this is political. It’s simply the environment we all work in.

Below are three policy currents that are already shaping how healthcare organizations build trust, attract talent, and communicate every day.

Prior Authorization Is Now a Candidate Experience Issue

CMS finalized the Interoperability and Prior Authorization rule. Payers must use FHIR-based APIs to share data across patients, providers, and payers. Decision windows are tightening to seventy-two hours for expedited requests and seven days for standard ones.

It sounds like back-end work, but it reaches the front line. Clinicians who have lived through years of uncertainty around prior auth now expect faster answers and clearer handoffs.
Employers that acknowledge this in their messaging stand out.

Add a simple line to job posts such as: We operate in markets using electronic prior ,authorization with transparent turnaround times.

Then show what that means. Create a one-page explainer called “How We Reduce Admin Drag” that outlines how requests move through your system. Candidates will see that your processes reflect your values.

TEFCA Turns Connectivity into a Brand Promise

TEFCA, or the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement, is the federal effort to make health data flow more easily between networks through qualified health information networks, or QHINs. The goal is for patient records to follow the person rather than stay locked in a single system.

For clinicians, that level of connectivity shapes how they judge where they want to work. If your markets already participate in TEFCA-enabled exchanges, say so.

Write a short post or webpage titled How Your Records Follow You Here. Use it in recruiter messaging and patient materials. During onboarding, include a short “Connectivity at a Glance” sheet listing the networks you connect through. When a record doesn’t transfer, make it clear who follows up and how. That consistency builds trust.

Privacy Expectations Are Quietly Changing Marketing

HHS and the Federal Trade Commission have both increased oversight of how healthcare organizations use tracking technologies and consumer data. The Office for Civil Rights continues to enforce its guidance, and the FTC has already issued penalties for misusing health data in advertising.

The takeaway is simple: third-party tracking is shrinking, and transparency is now a competitive advantage.

Recruiters and marketers will feel this first. Retargeting is less reliable. Content that people choose to engage with is what will build connection going forward.

Start by reviewing your sites. Remove any trackers that don’t serve a clear purpose. Replace them with meaningful sign-ups. Build a short recruiter email that shows what a typical day looks like, what your documentation standards are, and how technology supports the work.

Review your cookie banner and privacy copy. A page called Our Data Promise that explains what you collect and why is one of the simplest ways to show accountability.

Steps You Can Take Right Now

Online 

• Review every tracker and remove what you can’t explain in one sentence
• Add a short, clear privacy note in your footer for both patients and candidates

Recruitment

• Include one paragraph in job posts about how your systems improve workflow and reduce administrative work
• Add a short Day in the Life slide to recruiter decks that shows the impact of digital adoption

Onboarding

• Make sure your templates and denial language match CMS timeframes
• Create a one-page guide called “Where Your Data Goes” that explains your privacy posture in plain English

The Bigger Picture

The federal shutdown is another reminder of how fragile the system can feel. Funding slows, updates pause, and operations keep going anyway. These moments reveal which organizations already run on clarity and which depend on constant direction.

The teams that stay steady are the ones that treat compliance as part of communication: they explain changes clearly, they plan early, they make process feel predictable even when policy doesn’t.

That kind of consistency becomes a quiet advantage. It tells clinicians, partners, and patients that your systems hold steady when others stall.

In healthcare, where the rules change faster than the headlines, clarity is more than a strategy.
It’s a form of stability.

Bibliography
1. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Interoperability and Prior Authorization Final Rule (CMS–
0057–F). January 17, 2024. https://www.cms.gov.
2. Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC). Common Agreement Version
2.0: TEFCA Framework for Nationwide Health Data Exchange. January 2024.
3. The Sequoia Project, Recognized Coordinating Entity (RCE). Trusted Exchange Framework and Common
Agreement (TEFCA) Overview. 2024. https://rce.sequoiaproject.org.
4. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights (OCR). Use of Online Tracking
Technologies by HIPAA Covered Entities and Business Associates. March 2024.
https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/privacy/guidance/hipaa-online-tracking/index.html.
5. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Health Breach Notification Rule (16 CFR Part 318). Updated May 2024.
https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/rules/health-breach-notification-rule.
6. BetterHelp, Inc. Enforcement Action and GoodRx Holdings, Inc. Enforcement Action. Case summaries,
2023. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events.