News

A United States Attorney‘s Office is attempting to bootstrap the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services billing guidelines on overlapping surgeries into a False Claims Act case, the AHA and Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania argue in a friend-of-the-court brief filed in a case involving University of Pennsylvania Medical Center.

During an AHA-sponsored Capitol Hill briefing, hospital leaders discussed how COVID-19 has accelerated longstanding health care workforce challenges, including worker shortages and mental health fatigue.   

The AHA and seven other national organizations representing hospitals and health systems urged congressional leaders to remove the reductions to the Medicaid disproportionate share hospital program and uncompensated care pools from the social spending bill known as the Build Back Better Act (H.R. 5376). 

In a study of over 89,000 adults hospitalized with COVID-19 symptoms, prior vaccination with two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine was 77% effective in preventing COVID-19 in immunocompromised patients compared with 90% effective in immunocompetent patients, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s independent Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommended Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine be administered for children ages five through 11.

The AHA is accepting applications for its 2022 Dick Davidson NOVA Award through Nov. 19. The award recognizes AHA member hospitals and health systems for their collaborative efforts to create healthier communities through health care, economic or social initiatives.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention is recruiting health systems and health care providers to pilot test health equity indicators for cardiovascular health.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has extended the deadline for eligible hospitals to submit calendar year 2021 electronic clinical quality measures to the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting Program and Medicare Promoting Interoperability Program from Feb. 28 to March 31, 2022.

Open enrollment for 2022 coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplaces kicked off. The federally facilitated marketplace is open through Jan. 15, with over 5,500 local navigators and assisters and 48,000 agents and brokers available to help.

Health care providers should not purchase or use certain imported medical gloves from certain companies, which appear to have been reprocessed, cleaned or recycled and sold as new, the Food and Drug Administration announced.

Moderna announced an updated timeline for its COVID-19 vaccine for children. According to Moderna, the Food and Drug Administration last week notified the drug maker that it may not complete its assessment of the company’s EUA request for children age 12 to 17 before January 2022.

The recent expansion of COVID-19 booster shots for certain adult Americans means that millions more people are now eligible to seek extra protection against the deadly virus.

As recommended by its advisory committee on preventing lead exposure, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reduced the blood lead reference value for children from 5 micrograms per deciliter to 3.5 micrograms per deciliter to reflect declining blood lead levels in U.S. children aged 1-5.

AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack Sunday submitted the following letter to the editor of the New York Times responding to an article published online on a recent study in JAMA Health Forum on the Provider Relief Fund. 

The number of uninsured U.S. residents did not change substantially during the first 12 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report released by the Department of Health and Human Services. 

The Food and Drug Administration announced a Class 1 recall of battery packs for an intra-aortic balloon pump used with patients undergoing surgery and to treat adults with acute coronary syndrome or heart failure complications.

The Food and Drug Administration authorized Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for pediatric use, moving the issue of administration to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for consideration.

The American Medical Association published a Current Procedural Terminology code for providers administering a booster dose of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine.

In a study of over 7,000 adults hospitalized with COVID-19 symptoms, unvaccinated patients with prior SARS-CoV-2 infection were five times more likely to have laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 than were patients fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and no previous infection, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

President Biden yesterday released a revised framework for a $1.75 trillion social spending bill, which includes numerous health care provisions.