News

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently provided hospitals with new Medicare blanket waivers to address the COVID-19 public health emergency.

The federal government continues to learn lessons about distributing COVID-19 therapeutics, such as remdesivir, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn, M.D., said at a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing.

House Democrats unveiled the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act — a $3 trillion COVID-19 relief package.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued a final rule that implements the standards governing health insurance issuers and the Health Insurance Marketplaces (or “exchanges”) for 2021.

As we mark Mental Health Awareness Month during the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s important to remember that around 45% of U.S. hospitals and health systems do not offer specialized behavioral services.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched the COVID-19 Data Tracker, a website showing data on U.S. laboratory testing and cases reported to CDC from state health departments and territorial jurisdictions.

The COVID-19 pandemic could increase “deaths of despair” from alcohol, drug misuse and suicide by between 27,644 and 154,037 over the decade, depending how quickly the economy recovers.

The Food and Drug Administration expanded the list of drugs covered under newly flexible compounding policies to include two that may be in short supply because of the COVID-19 pandemic: morphine sulfate and epinephrine.

The Food and Drug Administration issued the first emergency use authorization for a COVID-19 antigen test, which can quickly detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus in a nasal swab sample.

The Department of Health and Human Services distributed $22 billion from the Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund to hospitals with high numbers of COVID-19 admissions, as well as rural hospitals and clinics.

Yesterday kicked off National Hospital Week, 2020. Has there ever been a more important and opportune time to observe it?

Employment at the nation's hospitals fell by 2.6% in April to a seasonally adjusted 5,130,000 people, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.

The CDC reported a notable drop in routine childhood vaccines ordered and administered through the federal Vaccines for Children program during the COVID-19 emergency.

FDA revised its April 3 emergency use authorization for N95 and similar respirators made in China to remove certain respirators that failed to demonstrate at least 95% particulate filtration efficiency when tested by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

The Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization to Rutgers Clinical Genomics Laboratory for the first COVID-19 diagnostic test with the option of using home-collected saliva samples.

CMS recently issued new Frequently Asked Questions to aid the Medicaid program and Children's Health Insurance Program in their response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

AHA urged the Federal Communications Commission to grant expedited approval to its request that the agency extend the COVID-19 Telehealth Program to all hospitals and other direct patient care facilities, regardless of their size, location, or for-profit or not-for-profit status.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been talking about the “triple whammy” of issues related to COVID-19 that are contributing to an unprecedented financial crisis for hospitals and health systems.

A federal district court in Washington, D.C., heard oral argument in the AHA’s legal challenge to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ final rule mandating that hospitals disclose their privately negotiated charges with commercial health insurers.

Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Michael Bennett, D-Colo., and Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, introduced AHA-supported legislation (S. 3615) that would extend for five years the Medicare Rural Community Hospital Demonstration Program.