Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar declared the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) a public health emergency and ordered all U.S. citizens returning from the Wuhan, China, region to be quarantined for two weeks.
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by Rick Pollack
American Hospital Association President and CEO Rick Pollack outlines the steps that leaders of hospitals and health systems should take to prepare for the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV).
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services today released new Medicaid guidance to states that would enable them to apply for 1115 waiver authority to receive a defined amount of federal funding to cover services for certain healthy adults.
Cardinal Health, in coordination with the Food and Drug Administration, today announced actions involving 2.9 million procedure packs manufactured between September 2018 and January 2020 that contain surgical gowns recalled last week.
The AHA urged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to withdraw a proposed rule related to Medicaid program financing and supplemental payments because it would “severely curtail the availability of health care services to millions of individuals” and “many of its provisions are not legally permissible.”
The AHA is accepting nominations through March 12 for outstanding clinicians to serve three years on its Committee on Clinical Leadership.
The National Governors Association urged CMS not move forward with its Medicaid fiscal accountability proposed rule as written.
The husband of a Chicago woman infected by the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) is the first individual in the U.S. to contract the illness via person-to-person contact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has identified the Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System billing codes for hospital outpatient services that will require prior authorization starting July 1 under the hospital outpatient prospective payment system final rule for calendar year 2020.
The national maternal mortality rate in 2018 was 17.4 per 100,000 live births, and ranged from 11.8 per 100,000 for Hispanic women to 37.1 per 100,000 for black women, according to data released by the National Center for Health Statistics.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services updated the overall hospital quality star ratings at Hospital Compare and data.medicare.gov as part of the quarterly refresh of the website’s data.
The Department of Health and Human Services and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that they assisted the Department of State in relocating approximately 195 U.S. citizens out of Wuhan, China.
A federal court voided certain provisions in a 2013 rule modifying the HIPAA privacy, security and enforcement rules under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act and Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.
A study reported in JAMA Network Open looks at geographic variation in social determinants of health in the continental U.S. and found that four indices accounted for 71% of the variance in 2014.
The AHA urged the administration to abandon a proposal that would require health plans to publicly release all of their negotiated rates, saying the policy would “lead to widespread confusion among patients, even greater consolidation in the commercial health insurance industry and other negative consequences for providers and consumers.”
by Sean Thornton
During the yearlong Hospital Community Cooperative pilot program, 10 hospital and community organization teams achieved 300 sustainable community health improvement outputs and promoted health equity. Learn more about the HCC’s initial success as the program grows in 2020.
The Department of Health and Human Services’ National Human Trafficking Training and Technical Assistance Center will offer free training March 4-5 in Nashville to help health care teams identify and respond to the needs of human trafficking victims and survivors.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued a national decision to cover diagnostic laboratory tests using next generation sequencing for certain Medicare patients with inherited ovarian or breast cancer.
Two subcommittees of the House Education and Labor Committee held a joint hearing titled “Expecting More: Addressing America’s Maternal and Infant Health Crisis,” which focused on strategies to reduce the nation’s maternal mortality rate and eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in maternal and infant health.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the State Department announced coronavirus (2019-nCoV) screenings at 20 U.S. airports, up from five. CDC also raised their travel guidance to Level 3 — avoid all nonessential travel to China.