News

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has identified the Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System billing codes for hospital outpatient services that will require prior authorization starting July 1 under the hospital outpatient prospective payment system final rule for calendar year 2020.

The national maternal mortality rate in 2018 was 17.4 per 100,000 live births, and ranged from 11.8 per 100,000 for Hispanic women to 37.1 per 100,000 for black women, according to data released by the National Center for Health Statistics.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services updated the overall hospital quality star ratings at Hospital Compare and data.medicare.gov as part of the quarterly refresh of the website’s data.

The Department of Health and Human Services and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that they assisted the Department of State in relocating approximately 195 U.S. citizens out of Wuhan, China.

A federal court voided certain provisions in a 2013 rule modifying the HIPAA privacy, security and enforcement rules under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act and Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.

A study reported in JAMA Network Open looks at geographic variation in social determinants of health in the continental U.S. and found that four indices accounted for 71% of the variance in 2014.

The AHA urged the administration to abandon a proposal that would require health plans to publicly release all of their negotiated rates, saying the policy would “lead to widespread confusion among patients, even greater consolidation in the commercial health insurance industry and other negative consequences for providers and consumers.” 

During the yearlong Hospital Community Cooperative pilot program, 10 hospital and community organization teams achieved 300 sustainable community health improvement outputs and promoted health equity. Learn more about the HCC’s initial success as the program grows in 2020.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ National Human Trafficking Training and Technical Assistance Center will offer free training March 4-5 in Nashville to help health care teams identify and respond to the needs of human trafficking victims and survivors.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued a national decision to cover diagnostic laboratory tests using next generation sequencing for certain Medicare patients with inherited ovarian or breast cancer.

Two subcommittees of the House Education and Labor Committee held a joint hearing titled “Expecting More: Addressing America’s Maternal and Infant Health Crisis,” which focused on strategies to reduce the nation’s maternal mortality rate and eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in maternal and infant health.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the State Department announced coronavirus (2019-nCoV) screenings at 20 U.S. airports, up from five. CDC also raised their travel guidance to Level 3 — avoid all nonessential travel to China.

The U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to lift a nationwide injunction imposed by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York preventing the Department of Homeland Security’s public charge final rule from taking effect while legal challenges to the rule proceed.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed five travel-related U.S. patients tested positive for the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) with 110 patients across 26 states under investigation.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans asked the Government Accountability Office to review how the Department of Health and Human Services has used grant funding to address the opioid crisis, how much remains unspent, and why.

The Department of Health and Human Services published a final rule requiring retail pharmacies, which include some hospital-owned pharmacies, to implement a modification to the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs D.0 Standard to identify “partial fill” prescriptions on health care claims for opioids and other Schedule II controlled substances.

America’s health care workers are a special group of people.

he Kansas Hospital Association has selected as its next president and CEO Chad Austin, who currently serves as executive vice president and will assume the new role in September.

Centene Corporation has completed its acquisition of WellCare Health Plans.

The Government Accountability Office said in a report that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services should determine the extent to which state Medicaid programs comply with federal requirements to cover medication-assisted treatment in all formats, and take actions as appropriate to ensure compliance.