News

The Department of Health and Human Services yesterday released a report on evidence-based strategies to increase physical activity among older adults in community, health care and home settings, noting that less than 15% of adults aged 65 and older meet the aerobic and muscle-strengthening activity recommendations in HHS’ Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans.

The AHA is offering a new set of social messages and assets for July 4 to remind everyone of the significant contributions of hospitals, health systems and health care workers to create healthy and vibrant communities, and that it is patriotic to pause and honor health care workers on this important day.

Sixty-seven oncology physician group practices in 37 states will participate in the Enhanced Oncology Model, a voluntary five-year payment model that will begin July 1 for beneficiaries who receive systemic chemotherapy, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced yesterday.

Commenting yesterday on the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed standards for ethylene oxide use to sterilize medical devices, AHA encouraged the agency to give commercial sterilization facilities sufficient time to comply with any final standards to protect access to safe and sterile medical devices for patient care.

Commenting yesterday on two major proposed rules related to access, finance and quality in the Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program managed care and fee-for-service delivery systems, AHA told the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services the wide-ranging regulations advance many important policies that will reshape the regulatory landscape for the Medicaid and CHIP programs.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit should reverse a district court decision that prevents the Health and Human Services Secretary from implementing an Affordable Care Act requirement that private health plans cover without cost-sharing U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendations for preventive services, AHA told the appeals court in a friend-of-the-court brief filed yesterday with the Federation of American Hospitals, Catholic Health Association of the United States, America’s Essential Hospitals, and Association of American Medical Colleges.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has released a free online course to help clinicians address perinatal mental health.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released guidance on an Inflation Reduction Act provision requiring state Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Programs to cover approved adult vaccines recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and their administration without cost sharing beginning Oct. 1, 2023.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating four locally acquired malaria cases in Florida and one in Texas, the first locally acquired U.S. cases since 2003.

Proposals to reduce Medicare payment rates for hospital outpatient departments by aligning them with payment rates for independent physician offices and ambulatory surgery centers are based on the false assumption that Medicare overpays hospitals for outpatient services, when in fact hospitals receive only 84 cents for every dollar they spend caring for Medicare patients, resulting in a staggering negative 17.5% Medicare outpatient margin, AHA and hospital leaders told congressional and other stakeholders at a Capitol Hill briefing June 26.  

The National Cancer Institute will provide $50 million in funding over five years to five centers that will research and implement structural changes to prevent cancer and improve outcomes for people in persistent poverty areas.

On today’s episode, I talk with AHA Board Member Doug Brown, president of UMass Memorial Community Hospitals and chief administrative officer for UMass Memorial Health, which serves patients throug

The Association for Health Care Resource & Materials Management annual conference August 6-9 in Orlando offers supply chain leaders a chance to collaborate, learn best practices and find solutions that benefit hospitals

In 2022, the AHA launched the Black Women CEO Roundtable to create a support system and facilitate meaningful connections.

The Food and Drug Administration June 22 approved the first gene therapy to treat patients aged 4-5 with a confirmed mutation in the Duchenne muscular dystrophy gene.

Medicare will cover new Alzheimer’s drugs that receive traditional approval from the Food and Drug Administration when a beneficiary is diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s disease dementia and has a physician participating in a registry with an appropriate clinical team and follow-up care, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced.

Hospitals and health systems provide healing, compassion and care to all people who walk through their doors.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services will host a June 27 webinar on its Review Choice Demonstration for Inpatient Rehabilitation Services, which will begin Aug. 21 in Alabama and expand to additional states at an undetermined date.

Delivery-related maternal mortality in U.S. hospitals decreased for all racial and ethnic groups, age groups and modes of delivery during 2008 to 2021, likely due to national strategies to improve delivery-related hospital care, the Department of Health and Human Services reported.

A bipartisan group of 233 representatives and 61 senators called on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Service to enhance its proposal to streamline prior authorization processes in Medicare Advantage, Medicaid and the federally-facilitated Marketplace to require real-time electronic decision-making for routinely approved services, responses for emergency procedures within 24 hours and additional transparency.