News

“Unprecedented” conditions imposed by the California attorney general on Huntington Hospital’s proposed affiliation with Cedars-Sinai would jeopardize the community’s access to critical clinical programs and services and disadvantage Huntington and its patients compared with other hospitals in the region, the hospital and health system said in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court. 

The AHA and American Society of Health-System Pharmacists urged the Food and Drug Administration to take appropriate enforcement action to protect patients from a payer-mandated drug distribution model known as “white bagging.” 

New information sharing requirements for health information technology take effect April 5 under an interim final rule released last year by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. 

AHA urged the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission to reconsider certain proposed changes to Medicare payment for indirect medical education and separately payable outpatient drugs, which the commission could vote on later this week. 

The Food and Drug Administration has launched a webpage on the impact of viral mutations on COVID-19 tests, including recommendations for clinical laboratory staff and health care providers using the tests. 

The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine was well tolerated and demonstrated 100% efficacy and robust antibody responses in a phase 3 clinical trial in 2,260 children aged 12-15, the vaccine’s makers announced. 

As part of AHA’s Joining Hands for Greater Impact series, we talk to Atrium Health, American Airlines and Charlotte Douglas International Airport representatives about how they came together to “get shots in arms” in Charlotte, N.C. 

The AHA shared with President Biden the association’s initial recommendations for infrastructure investments that should be included in an upcoming legislative package to ensure hospitals and health systems are fully equipped to care for their communities now and into the future, as well as respond to any future public health emergency. 

Anticipating possible congressional action to extend the moratorium on the 2% sequester cut to all Medicare payments, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said it has instructed Medicare administrative contractors to hold all claims with dates of service on or after April 1, 2021, for a short period.

The AHA’s Hospitals Against Violence initiative today kicked off the latest convening in a series of events focused on hospitals’ and health systems’ efforts to identify and prevent human trafficki

The Community Health Access and Rural Transformation Model will not seek applications from accountable care organizations until next spring, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services last month extended to April 1 the deadline for eligible hospitals to submit calendar year 2020 electronic clinical quality measures to the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting Program and Medicare Promoting Interoperability Program.

The AHA Physician Alliance joins the chorus of thanks to doctors everywhere on March 30 — National Doctor’s Day. Read more.  

The Food and Drug Administration recently issued an emergency use authorization for a next generation sequencing test to detect SARS-CoV-2 in respiratory specimens from individuals suspected of COVID-19 by their health care provider.

Health care and behavioral health care systems can apply through April 19 for grants to screen children and/or adults in primary care and community health settings to screen for substance use disorders, implement brief interventions and refer for treatment services, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration announced. 

The Department of Health and Human Services through March 26 has reduced by more than 69% its backlog of Medicare appeals at the Administrative Law Judge level, according to a status report the agency provided Friday to a federal court.

The Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines reduced the risk of both asymptomatic and symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection by 90% at least two weeks after the second dose and by 80% at least two weeks after the first dose in a study of 3,950 vaccinated health care and other essential workers, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. 

In this episode of Leadership Rounds, I talk with Alvin Hoover, CEO of King’s Daughters Medical Center in Brookhaven, Miss., who is serving on the front lines of rural health care.   

AHA urged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to rescind its recent audit determinations denying hospitals a mid-build exception to site-neutral payment under the 21st Century Cures Act.

The FBI released an alert on Mamba ransomware, which uses an open source encryptions software to encrypt and restrict access to a victim’s entire drive, including the operating system.