News

To help guide physician and patient conversations as part of the American Board of Internal Medicine’s Choosing Wisely campaign, the Society of General Internal Medicine today released an updated list of commonly ordered tests and procedures that are not always necessary in general internal medicine based on the latest evidence. The five recommendations address topics ranging from home glucose testing to annual general health checks, preoperative testing, cancer screening and peripherally inserted central catheters.

Nonprofit hospitals and emergency departments, including free standing EDs and Rural Emergency Hospitals, can apply through March 6 for up to $500,000 per year for up to three years to develop and implement alternatives to opioids for pain management in hospitals and ED settings, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration announced recently. The agency expects to award up to 14 grants under the program.

The uninsured rate for Americans under age 65 fell from 11.1% in 2019 to 10.5% in 2021, according to a report released today by the Department of Health and Human Services.

In a guest blog for the Institute for Diversity and Health Equity, Lisa Mallory, CEO of the National Association of Health Services Executives, reflects on the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the shared task to seek and implement solutions to what Dr. King called “the most shocking and inhumane” injustice: inequality in health care.

The final episode in a four-part series on Caring for Family Caregivers, this podcast features two experts from Ventura County, Calif., who discuss how hospital and community partnerships can innovate to provide family caregivers with greater support as the U.S. population of older adults continues to grow.

Forty state Medicaid programs newly allowed or expanded audio-only telehealth services for behavioral health in 2022, and 39 expanded the types of behavioral health services eligible for telehealth delivery, according to a supplement to the annual Kaiser Family Foundation survey of state Medicaid directors.

In this new resource from AHA’s The Value Initiative to help hospitals thrive in value-based payment contracts, Amol Navathe, M.D., assistant professor, medical ethics and health policy, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, and Mai Pham, M.D., president and CEO, Institute for Exceptional Care, explore opportunities and challenges in implementing value-based payment models to improve health equity.

The recently enacted Consolidated Appropriations Act delays by one year, until Jan. 1, 2024, payment reductions of up to 15% under the Medicare Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services noted in an update this week.

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission today voted to recommend that Congress update Medicare payment rates for hospital inpatient and outpatient services by the current law amount plus 1% for 2024, and distribute an additional $2 billion to safety-net hospitals by transitioning to a safety-net index policy.

Hospitals and health systems have a special role to play in helping to realize Dr. King’s dream of a truly just society.

The National Advisory Committee for the Hospital Incident Command System encourages hospitals and health systems to complete by Feb. 28 a survey on the system’s emergency management performance during the past few years to identify potential improvements.

The Health Resources and Services Administration on Feb. 22 will host its first training webinar for National Practitioner Data Bank administrators, who manage their organization’s NPDB account.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency this week simplified procedures for its Public Assistance Program, which provides disaster response grants to non-profit health care organizations and others.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services yesterday released a memo and timeline outlining how it will approach implementing the Inflation Reduction Act’s Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program, which will negotiate prices with drug makers for certain high-cost, sole-source drugs and apply them beginning in 2026.

AHA filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to affirm a federal jury’s unanimous 2022 verdict in favor of Sutter Health and certain affiliates in a lawsuit that alleged the California-based integrated health care network violated federal antitrust law in their arrangements with health plans. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention joined the government of Uganda and global public health community in marking the end of the Ebola outbreak in Uganda, 42 days after the last reported case.

Nearly 16 million people selected a 2023 health plan through the federally facilitated or state-based marketplaces Nov. 1 through Jan. 7, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reported. 

The Department of Health and Human Services renewed the COVID-19 public health emergency declaration for another 90 days.

States that expanded Medicaid coverage to low-income adults in 2014 under the Affordable Care Act reduced postpartum hospitalizations for low-income people, according to a study reported yesterday in Health Affairs, which compared 2010-2017 data from four states that expanded Medicaid and four that did not. 

As drug prices continue to rise, the 340B drug pricing program continues to help hospitals expand access to comprehensive health services, including lifesaving prescription drugs for those in need who may not be able to afford them, writes AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack in the Wall Street Journal.