News

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.

Affordable health care ranks among the top concerns for many Americans. It’s a concern that hospitals and health systems fully share … and we have been working hard to address.

The Department of Health and Human Services proposed to withdraw a rule finalized in January that requires the agency to periodically assess each regulation to determine whether it has a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities, and if so review the regulation to determine whether to retain, modify or eliminate it.

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas released a new immigration enforcement policy for “protected areas,” including hospitals and other medical or mental health care facilities.

The FBI recently raided the Florida offices of Pax Technology, a Chinese-owned company that makes point-of-sale payment terminals, because the devices may have been involved in cyberattacks on U.S. and European organizations, according to news reports.

The AHA sent a letter of support for the Preventing and Addressing Trauma with Health Services (PATHS) Act (S. 2873), a Senate bill that would provide grants for high-quality, culturally competent trauma support and mental health services for individuals in communities affected by gun violence. The bill would also support Hospital-based Violence Intervention Programs intended to foster safer communities. 

The Senate Judiciary Committee passed the False Claims Amendments Act (S. 2428), legislation that would make it harder to dismiss meritless lawsuits, among other problematic changes to the False Claims Act. 

The AHA released the latest edition of the COVID-19 Snapshot, underscoring the persisting challenges facing hospitals and health systems during the ongoing public health emergency