News

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response yesterday awarded $600 million for 12 domestic COVID-19 test manufacturers to expand capacity.

Nearly 500,000 children and other individuals who were improperly disenrolled from Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program will regain their coverage, the Department of Health and Human Services announced Sept. 21.

The departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and the Treasury yesterday released a proposed rule that would increase the administrative fee for disputes initiated under the No Surprises Act independent dispute resolution process from $50 to $150 per party per dispute, which would remain in effect until changed by subsequent notice-and-comment rulemaking.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee today voted 14-7 to advance as amended to the full Senate the Bipartisan Primary Care and Health Workforce Expansion Act (S. 2840), legislation that would cut hospitals and health systems to fund community health centers and health care workforce initiatives.

The Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation Sept. 20 recognized 25 state medical boards for changing invasive and stigmatizing mental health questions in their licensing applications, a 47% increase from last year, and 12 health systems (including 75 hospitals and 59 urgent care centers) for making these changes to credentialing applications.

Karie Gibson, a licensed clinical psychologist who leads one of the FBI’s five behavioral analysis units, shares a behavioral threat assessment approach to violence prevention for hospitals and health care teams.

As millions of people are losing their Medicaid coverage as a result of the redetermination process, hospitals and health systems are seeing substantial increases in uncompensated care and facing new Medicare cuts that will exacerbate their financial challenges, according to a AHA blog post published Sept. 20.

The Health Information Sharing and Analysis Center (H-ISAC) Sept. 19 alerted the health sector to an emerging threat that targets senior executives through phishing emails that contain malicious QR codes, also known as quishing.

AHA Sept. 20 urged leaders of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to remove from the Bipartisan Primary Care and Health Workforce Expansion Act proposals that would eliminate facility fees for telehealth and evaluation and management services, require a separate identification number for each off-campus outpatient department of a provider, and prevent providers from negotiating reasonable agreements with commercial health insurance plans.

A number of legislative proposals being considered by Congress would impose billions of dollars in additional Medicare payment cuts for services provided by hospital outpatient departments and reduce patient access to vital health care services, AHA Executive Vice President Stacey Hughes said today during a panel discussion hosted by Politico.