News

The Department of Health and Human Services announced an agreement with drug maker Gilead Sciences to allow U.S. hospitals to purchase up to 500,000 treatment courses of remdesivir through September, which HHS and state health departments will allocate as they did the previous 120,000 treatment courses donated by the drug maker.

“I just can’t imagine going back because people recognize the value of this.” That’s what Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma said recently about the increased use of telehealth, signaling that doctoring from a distance — which has shown itself to be a lifesaving tool during the COVID-19 pandemic — could be here to stay. 

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said it will extend the Medicare Care Choices Model by one year, through Dec. 31, 2021; already participating hospices can enroll eligible beneficiaries through June 30, 2021.

The Department of Health and Human Services through June 26 has reduced by 43% its backlog of Medicare appeals at the Administrative Law Judge level, according to a status report the agency provided today to a federal court.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention joined the World Health Organization to declare the end of the Ebola Virus Disease outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Department of Justice urged the Supreme Court to strike down the entirety of the Affordable Care Act, including its protections for pre-existing conditions and expansion of the Medicaid program.

As many front-line health care workers move beyond the immediate pandemic crisis, now is the time to reflect on the psychological toll, writes Jesse Burgard, a regional chief mental health officer for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and AHA Behavioral Health Services Council member.

The Food and Drug Administration added the AustinP51 emergency-use system to its list of ventilator authorized for emergency use in health care settings to treat adults during the COVID-19 pandemic.

More than 892,000 consumers in states using the HealthCare.gov platform gained 2020 coverage since the end of open enrollment through May by using a Special Enrollment Period, a 27% increase from the same period last year, according to a report released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

A therapeutic, two-antibody COVID-19 treatment “cocktail” from Regeneron and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority moved to its first clinical trial, the developers earlier this month announced.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has updated and expanded its list of people at risk of severe COVID-19 illness, the agency said.

The American Medical Association announced a new Current Procedural Terminology code (87426) for reporting antigen testing to detect SARS-CoV-2 infection on medical claims.

AHA urged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to temporarily extend certain waivers and make others permanent beyond the COVID-19 public health emergency to allow hospitals to provide better and more cost effective care to their patients and communities.

Expanding access to telehealth services to provide much more patient-centered, convenient care. Creating additional health care workforce capacity and avoiding workforce shortages. Removing barriers for patients and communities to access needed care.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued its calendar year 2021 proposed rule for the home health prospective payment system.

Suicide deaths increased by 37% between 2000 and 2018, with 41 states experiencing statistically significant increases over the same period, according to a pair of reports released this month by the State Health Access Data Assistance Center.

Democratic leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee released findings from their investigation of 14 companies that sell or help consumers sign up for short-term, limited duration health plans.

Clinicians participating in the Quality Payment Program Merit-based Incentive Payment System in 2020 whose practice was significantly impacted by the COVID-19 public health emergency may apply for an exception to reweight the MIPS performance categories, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently confirmed that Medicare contractors will not calculate an average length of stay for long-term care hospitals for cost reporting periods that include the COVID-19 public health emergency, which took effect March 1.

Nearly 20 health care provider organizations, including the AHA, urged Congress to enact legislation to clarify that relief funds provided through the Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund and other programs as part of the nation’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic are exempt from taxation, and that entities receiving them maintain the tax deductions attributable to these funds.