News

The Food and Drug Administration authorized using a single dose of the Moderna or Pfizer bivalent COVID-19 vaccine for primary vaccination as well as for future doses. Under today’s amended emergency use authorizations, the monovalent Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines are no longer authorized for use in the United States. 

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released its standards for qualified health plans offered through the health insurance marketplaces for 2024. CMS finalized with limited exceptions its proposal to require all plans (regardless of marketplace type) to comply with network adequacy and enhanced essential community provider standards, and add to the ECP standards mental health and substance use disorder treatment facilities, beginning in plan year 2024.

AHA recently launched the Quality Collective, an exclusive peer-to-peer learning hub for health care quality leaders. 

The Food and Drug Administration last week required certain labeling updates for opioid pain medicines in an effort to reduce unnecessary prescribing and prevent complications such as opioid-induced hyperalgesia, when an opioid causes an increase in pain or increased sensitivity to pain.

On April 24 at its Annual Membership Meeting in Washington, D.C., AHA will recognize Jim Hinton, former president and CEO of Dallas-based Baylor Scott & White Health, with its 2023 Justin Ford Kimball Innovators Award.

The Department of Health and Human Services today released Health Industry Cybersecurity Practices: Managing Threats and Protecting Patients, which outlines the top five threats facing the health care sector and 10 practices to combat them. 

The AHA, joined by the Arkansas Hospital Association and 340B Health, late Friday filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit defending Arkansas’ 340B Drug Pricing Nondiscrimination Act against a constitutional challenge brought by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.

On this episode, I talk with Marcos Pesquera, system vice president for community health and chief diversity officer at CHRISTUS Health, headquartered in Irving, Texas.

Wendell Primus, former senior health policy advisor to Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, will receive the AHA Honorary Life Membership Award April 24 at the AHA Annual Membership Meeting for his outstanding contributions to advancing health care in America.

The Department of Health and Human Services plans this month to propose amending the definition of “lawful presence” for purposes of Medicaid and Affordable Care Act coverage to allow undocumented immigrants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, also known as “Dreamers,” to apply for coverage through Medicaid and the Health Insurance Marketplace and qualify for Marketplace subsidies based on income, the White House announced yesterday.

Labor costs and volume disruptions drove declines in operating margins for nonprofit hospitals and health systems in fiscal 2022, Moody’s Investors Service reported yesterday based on preliminary medians data from 132 health systems.

The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC) today approved four recommendations to Congress that would amend the Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital program.

The Department of Health and Human Services plans to amend its Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act declaration for COVID-19 to extend liability protections for certain COVID-19 countermeasure activities beyond the May 11 end of the public health emergency, the agency announced today.

As urged by the AHA, the U.S. Supreme Court today unanimously reversed a 9th Circuit decision that impliedly stripped federal district courts of jurisdiction over constitutional challenges to the Federal Trade Commission structure, procedures and existence.

Hospital and health system leaders from across the country next weekend will begin to arrive in Washington, D.C. for the 2023 AHA Annual Membership Meeting

Marna P. Borgstrom, who retired last March as CEO of Yale New Haven (Conn.) Health, and Andy Carter, who will retire in June as president and CEO of The Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania, will receive 2023 AHA Board of Trustees Awards April 24 at the AHA Annual Membership Meeting in Washington, D.C., for their contributions to AHA and the field. 

With spring in full bloom, AHA is offering for hospitals and health system a social media toolkit promoting COVID-19 vaccination and boosters.

About 100,000 registered nurses left the workforce during the past two years due to stress, burnout and retirements, and another 610,388 reported an intent to leave by 2027, according to a study released by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing. 

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission today voted to recommend Congress adopt additional site-neutral payment policies for certain outpatient services; reduce add-on payments and adopt other policies to address high Medicare Part B drug costs; and repeal the existing Medicare wage index system and phase in a new system that attempts to address current flaws.

The latest threat brief from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Information Security and Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center (HC3) reviews the top cyber threats to electronic medical records and best practices to help health care organizations prevent, detect and respond to this growing threat.