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The latest stories from AHA Today.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid services late today issued a proposed rule implementing key provisions of the new physician payment system required by the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015. Section 101 of MACRA repeals the Medicare sustainable growth rate methodology…
The House Energy and Commerce Committee today approved five AHA-supported bills as part of its legislative package to address the opioid epidemic. The bills would: establish an interagency task force to review, modify and update best practices for pain management and pain medication…
The Senate Special Committee on Aging today held the third in a series of hearings to investigate sudden and aggressive price spikes in older prescription drugs. Testifying at the hearing, Richard Fogel, M.D., chief clinical officer for Ascension Health’s St.
Racial and ethnic differences in life expectancy, infant mortality, female cigarette smoking, flu vaccinations for seniors, and health insurance coverage narrowed between 1999 and 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest annual report on the nation…
A new report from the Pew Charitable Trusts profiles 10 antibiotic stewardship programs in inpatient settings, which provide examples to hospitals seeking to establish or improve their antibiotic stewardship efforts.
A physician with Rice Medical Center in rural Eagle Lake, Texas, can treat students nearly 400 miles away in tiny Sheffield (population 600) via telemedicine. His virtual tool-belt includes an electronic stethoscope that enables him to hear a patient’s heartbeat in real time and a high-…
The Joint Commission’s pain standards are unfairly blamed for the current prescription opioid epidemic because of “misperceptions” of what it requires hospitals and other accredited institutions to do, says David Baker, M.D., The Joint Commission’s executive vice president…
The AHA today voiced support for six bills to address the opioid epidemic pending before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The legislation would require the Government Accountability Office to report on opioid use disorder treatment availability and need (H.R. 4982); establish federal…
Policymakers can advance care delivery and benefit patients by expanding access to telehealth in Medicare and new payment models, according to a new AHA issue brief. “A growing body of evidence shows that telehealth can not only expand access to services but also create cost savings,” the report…
Data sharing may be essential to hospital strategies to identify high users and improve community health, according to a study published online by JAMA Internal Medicine. The study examined patterns of hospital use by patients with more than five emergency department visits to Maryland…