News

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has released an updated tool to help clinicians determine if they must participate this year in the Merit-based Incentive Payment System, one of two payment pathways for clinicians under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015.

Adam Boehler, founder and former CEO of home-based care company Landmark Health, will join the Department of Health and Human Services this week as deputy administrator and director of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit last week affirmed a 2017 district court ruling that permanently barred the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services from using FAQs 33 and 34 in calculating Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital payments for New Hampshire hospitals.

Former AHA Board Chair D. Kirk Oglesby passed away this past weekend after a brief illness. AHA chair in 1992, he also chaired the American College of Healthcare Executives and The Joint Commission.

As baby boomers retire, millennials will become an even larger part of the workforce, so engaging them will become more important than ever.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services late this afternoon released a final rule that makes programmatic and operational changes to the Medicare Advantage and prescription drug benefit programs for contract year 2019.

At the request of AHA and others, the Drug Enforcement Administration has taken steps that will address the IV opioid shortages.

A federal district court judge in Alabama yesterday ruled that the Blue Cross Blue Shield organizations named in multi-district antitrust litigation in that court must defend under a strict per se standard of review the geographic and output restrictions in the “exclusive service area” and “national best efforts” rules.

More than 90 people have presented to emergency departments in Illinois and four other states since March 10 with serious unexplained bleeding, including two patients who died.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has launched an Evidence-Based Practices Resource Center, which offers treatment improvement protocols, clinical practice guidelines and other tools related to opioids and other substance use prevention, treatment and recovery, and serious mental illness and mental health.

Employment at the nation's hospitals rose by 0.19% in March to a seasonally adjusted 5,153,700 people.

Each April, the AHA joins Donate Life America, the Health Resources and Services Administration and others in highlighting the important role of organ, eye and tissue donation in providing hope and health. 

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission today approved a recommendation to reduce emergency department payment rates by 30% for off-campus stand-alone EDs located within six miles of an on-campus hospital ED.

The leaders of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee last night released a discussion draft of bipartisan legislation to address the opioid crisis, and announced an April 11 hearing on the bill with the goal of marking up legislation this spring.

U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams, M.D., today issued a public health advisory urging Americans who misuse opioids, have an opioid use disorder or recent overdose, or know someone who does, to carry and know how to use naloxone – a drug that can be delivered via nasal mist or injection to temporarily suspend the effects of an overdose until emergency responders arrive.

The AHA, along with Baxter International Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust, is accepting applications through April 6 for the 2018 Foster G. McGaw Prize.

The AHA today expressed support for the Children’s Hospital GME Support Reauthorization Act of 2018 (S. 2597/H.R. 5385), which would reauthorize the Children’s Hospitals Graduate Medical Education program for an additional five years and fund the program annually at $330 million.

The National Institutes of Health will spend about $1.1 billion this year on research to prevent and treat opioid addiction.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology today released an online guide to help patients and caregivers access and use their health information electronically.

Nearly 11.8 million people actively or automatically enrolled in a health plan through HealthCare.gov or a state-based exchange during open enrollment for 2018.