News

Legislators need to be aware of the work that hospitals and health systems do now more than ever because the House and Senate are considering so-called site-neutral legislation that would further reduce Medicare funding for patient services provided by hospitals.

Effective Aug. 1, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has instructed Medicare Administrative Contractors to begin checking hospital and health system claims for outpatient services provided in off-campus provider-based departments to ensure that the address where the services were provided exactly matches the provider location information in the Medicare Provider Enrollment, Chain, and Ownership System, the agency announced.

Health Services Research, the flagship publication of AHA’s Health Research & Educational Trust and an official journal of AcademyHealth, invites researchers to submit through July 31 abstracts highlighting scientific contributions and real-world impacts emanating from learning health systems.

Suicide accounts for one in five postpartum deaths; one in five women experience a perinatal mental health condition; and over half of pregnant women with depression do not receive treatment, according to a new AHA infographic highlighting the grim statistics surrounding maternal mental health, five ways to improve maternal mental health outcomes and recommended resources for providers.

The president should create a permanent federal body responsible for advancing racial, ethnic and tribal equity across the federal government, according to recommendations released July 27 by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The Health Resources and Services Administration yesterday awarded 15 organizations up to $750,000 each to establish residency programs in rural communities.

The AHA yesterday joined 85 national organizations in urging Congress to swiftly pass the Preventing Maternal Deaths Reauthorization Act (H.R.3838/S.2415), bipartisan legislation that would reauthorize federal support for state-based maternal mortality review committees, which review pregnancy-related deaths to identify causes and make recommendations to prevent future mortalities.

The AHA today joined 16 other organizations in voicing support for the Value in Health Care Act, bipartisan legislation that would extend the 5% Medicare payment incentives for advanced Alternative Payment Models under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act that are set to expire this year.

The AHA July 27 joined AHIP, the American Medical Association, and Blue Cross Blue Shield Association in urging the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services not to implement its proposed HIPAA prior authorization standards for claims attachments due to conflicting regulatory proposals, which “would create the very same costly burdens” that administrative simplification seeks to alleviate.

The Senate Appropriations Committee today voted 26-2 to approve legislation that would provide $224.4 billion in funding for the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education in fiscal year 2024, a 7% cut below the prior fiscal year.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services today released its fiscal year 2024 final rule for the inpatient psychiatric facility prospective payment system, which updates the IPF payment rate by a net 2.4% in FY 2024.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services today released its fiscal year 2024 Inpatient Rehabilitation Facility Prospective Payment System final rule.

Nishant Prasad, M.D., program director of infectious diseases at NewYork-Presbyterian Queens, shares how his team reexamined its approach to central line-associated bloodstream infections and reduced occurrences to zero last year.

The FDA has updated its recognized consensus standards for medical devices to include more options for device sponsors to consider during premarket review. Find out how this affects your medical device.

The House Ways and Means Committee July 26 voted 25-16 to pass the Health Care Price Transparency Act (H.R. 4822), legislation that would impose additional site-neutral payment cuts and regulatory burdens on off-campus hospital outpatient departments, impose additional Medicare sequester cuts on hospitals, and codify and make changes to hospital price transparency regulations.

With the generous support of many people and organizations, Chris Manson, vice president for government relations at OSF HealthCare in Peoria, Ill., has helped deliver over 50 ambulances and tons of medical supplies to Ukraine since March 2022

Malicious actors recently exploited a Citrix vulnerability to steal active directory data from a critical infrastructure organization, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency reported recently, urging organizations to take certain steps to detect a potential system compromise and apply patches.

The departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and the Treasury released a proposed rule that seeks to ensure commercial health plans comply with the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008, which prohibits them from imposing more restrictive requirements on mental health or substance use disorder benefits than on medical and surgical benefits.

A Modern Healthcare analysis of 340B hospitals “should be viewed with the derision it deserves,” writes AHA General Counsel & Secretary Melinda Hatton.

The Veterans Health Administration is offering free online training to help community health care providers feel confident and comfortable talking with veterans at risk for suicide about secure storage of firearms and other lethal means, which can help save lives.