News

A bipartisan group of 32 senators expressed concerns that the Department of Health and Human Services’ Sept. 19 change to COVID-19 Provider Relief Fund reporting requirements will create uncertainty and financial hardship for hospitals, particularly those in rural areas.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced new repayment terms for payments received under its Accelerated and Advance Payment programs, including a longer time period before repayment, lower recoupment rates during repayment, lower interest on remaining unpaid balance, and additional repayment flexibilities.

The good — our society clearly recognizes the vital role our hospitals and health systems play in our nation’s critical infrastructure and how important they are to our communities’ health and safety. The bad — we have seen an increase in the frequency, severity and sophistication of cyberattacks targeting hospitals and health systems.

The Health Resources and Services Administration Oct. 15 at 3 p.m. ET will host a webcast to provide additional information on the latest round of COVID-19 Provider Relief Funds.

Wendy Darwell will become president and CEO of the Nassau-Suffolk Hospital Council and Northern Metropolitan Hospital Association (NorMet) effective Jan. 1, succeeding Kevin Dahill when he retires Dec. 31, leaders of the organizations announced yesterday.

For the latest in her Leadership Rounds series of conversations with hospital and health system leaders from across the nation, AHA Board Chair Melinda Estes, M.D., is joined by Kimberlydawn Wisdom, M.D., senior vice president of community health and equity and chief wellness and diversity officer at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit.

U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams, M.D., released a report urging Americans to recognize and address hypertension control as a national public health priority.

An estimated 7.7 million workers lost jobs with employer-sponsored health insurance between February and June during the pandemic, according to a study released by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, W.E.

The Food and Drug Administration recommended that health care providers provide written or video step-by-step instructions, in addition to verbal instructions, to patients who are self-collecting anterior nares (nasal) samples for COVID-19 testing in a health care setting.

The Food and Drug Administration warned Battelle Memorial Institute that its respirator decontamination system does not comply with the requirement in its emergency use authorization to establish internal systems that provide for timely and effective identification, communication and evaluation of adverse events, and asked the device maker to submit a correction plan within 14 days.

Pittsburgh’s UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital adopted a variety of technologies to improve clinical outcomes and promote greater patient engagement.

The AHA has elected to fill a vacancy on its Board of Trustees Phyllis Cowling, president and CEO of United Regional Health Care System in Wichita Falls, Texas.

Financial institutions and other organizations that facilitate ransomware payments may face sanctions for assisting a malicious cyber actor that the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has sanctioned, according to a recent OFAC advisory.

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center has used the “4Ms Framework” for an Age-Friendly Health System in its geriatric fracture program and for telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The American Medical Association released for immediate use Current Procedural Terminology codes for reporting on medical claims two laboratory tests (87636 and 87637) that simultaneously detect the COVID-19 virus, influenza A/B and respiratory syncytial virus.

The National Institutes of Health’s Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics initiative awarded $98.4 million in contracts to scale up and manufacture new COVID-19 testing technologies.

The Food and Drug Administration released guidance and a briefing document outlining the key data needed to support an emergency use authorization for a COVID-19 vaccine candidate and further explaining the EUA process.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its guidance on how COVID-19 spreads to acknowledge published reports showing “limited, uncommon” circumstances where people with COVID-19 infected others who were more than 6 feet away.

A recent analysis from the Peterson Center on Healthcare and the Kaiser Family Foundation provides an incomplete picture of U.S. spending on health care while downplaying the “immense role” that drug costs play, writes Aaron Wesolowski, AHA’s vice president of policy research, analytics and strategy, for the AHA Stat Blog.

Pediatric hospitalization rates appear to increase when unemployment levels rise, according to a study of 14 states between 2002 and 2014, reported in Health Affairs.