News

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Aug. 29 announced that beginning in 2020 it will allow Medicare Part D plans to vary the formulary placement of a drug based on what condition the drug may treat.

The AHA Aug. 28 urged the Drug Enforcement Administration to reconsider its proposed 2019 aggregate production quotas for certain controlled substances, which the agency said would reduce manufacturing quotas for six frequently misused opioids by an average 10 percent.

Legislators sent a letter to the Health Resources and Services Administration urging the agency to implement regulations to better administer the 340B drug savings program.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Aug. 27 released an evaluation report for the first performance year of the agency’s Next Generation Accountable Care Organization Model.

The Senate last night voted 85-7 to pass an $857 billion spending package, which includes bills that would fund the departments of Health and Human Services, Defense and Labor for fiscal year 2019.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General seeks comments on how it can modify the anti-kickback statute and exceptions to the beneficiary inducements civil monetary penalty definition of “remuneration.”

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services yesterday announced a new payment and service delivery model as part of a multi-pronged strategy to combat the nation’s opioid crisis.

The Food and Drug Administration recently authorized the temporary import of hydromorphone hydrochloride injection from Canada to address a critical shortage of the drug, an opioid pain medication.

Health care and public health professionals can register to attend a Sept. 19-20 workshop in Omaha, Neb., on preparing for emerging infectious diseases, such as Ebola.

In children, antibiotics are the leading cause of emergency department visits for adverse drug events.

The health care community’s efforts alone are not enough to stem the tide of the opioid epidemic. We need more help from the federal government.

The AHA today expressed support for and urged all senators to support an amendment to the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education appropriations bill that would help address the out-of-control cost of prescription drugs.

The Campaign for Sustainable Rx Pricing, of which the AHA is a founding member, today joined more than a dozen other health organizations in urging the Food and Drug Administration to finalize guidance critical to increasing competition in the biologics marketplace and expanding access to more affordable biosimilar options, similar to the generic options that exist today for molecule drugs.

The Department of Health and Human Services today issued a request for information seeking input on reporting criteria for the Electronic Health Record Reporting Program required by the 21st Century Cures Act.

Nearly half of Ohio’s Medicaid expansion new enrollees reported improvement in their overall health status since enrolling in Medicaid, compared to 3.5 percent who said their health had worsened, according to a report released by the state’s Department of Medicaid.

The AHA’s Hospitals Against Violence initiative and AHA’s Health Research & Educational Trust’s Hospital Improvement Innovation Network Aug. 27 at 12 p.m. ET will host a webinar on preventing violence in the workplace.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services today in a letter to state Medicaid directors outlined its current policies related to budget neutrality for Medicaid demonstration projects authorized under Section 1115 of the Social Security Act and provided states insights into the agency’s decision-making process.

The departments of Health and Human Services and the Treasury today approved a Section 1332 waiver for Maryland to implement a five-year reinsurance program for its individual health insurance market beginning in 2019.

The Food and Drug Administration today awarded a contract to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to develop evidence-based guidelines for appropriate opioid analgesic prescribing for acute pain resulting from specific conditions or procedures.

In 2016, the difference between the amount that the Medicare drug benefit program reported spending on 29 brand-name combination medications and the estimated spending for generic constituents for the same number of doses was $925 million.