News

A program created by the Camden (N.J.) Coalition of Healthcare Providers to coordinate outpatient care and social services for patients with complex medical and social needs after discharge from the hospital does not significantly reduce readmission rates, according to a randomized, controlled trial reported this week in the New England Journal of Medicine.

A study on hospital mergers and quality described in a recent article in The Wall Street Journal uses data that is not sufficiently up to date and therefore of minimal value for assessing the benefits of hospital mergers.

Employment at the nation's hospitals rose by 0.17% in December to a seasonally adjusted 5,297,100 people.

Brian Donley, M.D., CEO of Cleveland Clinic London, will chair AHA's Health Care Systems Council in 2020, and Penny Wheeler, M.D., president and CEO of Allina Health, Minneapolis, will serve as chair-elect.

Election Day is fewer than 10 months away so get ready, get connected and get involved.

A federal appeals court yesterday denied the administration’s request to reverse a nationwide preliminary injunction blocking a Department of Homeland Security rule that would limit the ability of legal immigrants to adjust or extend their immigration status or gain full citizenship based on their prospective receipt of public benefits.

Health care providers should notify their state and local health departments and infection control personnel immediately if patients with unexplained severe respiratory illness developed symptoms within two weeks of returning from Wuhan City, China, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised yesterday.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar yesterday declared a public health emergency for Puerto Rico.

Almost 8.3 million people selected a 2020 health plan through www.HealthCare.gov during open enrollment, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said in an update yesterday.

A new AHA TrendWatch report provides an overview of the current national health care workforce and examples of hospitals and health systems’ responses to trend shifts.

The House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee today held a hearing on a number of health care bills, including those that would reauthorize the AHA-supported Healthy Start program and continue Medicaid coverage for non-emergency medical transportation.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has delayed 2020 private payer data reporting for the Clinical Diagnostic Test Payment System until 2021 for tests that are not advanced diagnostic laboratory tests, as required by recent legislation extending funding for federal programs through fiscal year 2020.

Ninety-eight percent of eligible clinicians and 97% of rural practices who participated in the 2018 Quality Payment Program through the Merit-based Incentive Payment System track will receive a positive payment adjustment in 2020.

Hospitals participating in the Medicare Bundled Payment for Care Improvement Program reduced spending for lower extremity joint replacements over three years by an average 1.6 percent more than hospitals that did not participate, with no change in quality, according to a study reported last week in Health Affairs.

Members of the Aligning for Health coalition, whose members include the AHA, yesterday along with other organizations urged leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee to hold a hearing on the Social Determinants Accelerator Act (H.R. 4004) and other opportunities to address the social determinants of health.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services yesterday announced proposed changes to the risk adjustment model for Medicare Advantage organizations and certain demonstrations for calendar year 2021.

Brad Smith, former chief operating officer for Anthem’s Diversified Business Group, will serve as director of the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation and senior advisor to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar for value-based transformation, Azar and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma announced yesterday.

Twenty states and the District of Columbia Friday petitioned the Supreme Court to review this term a recent federal appeals court decision that held the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate unconstitutional.

As requested by AHA, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently extended to Feb. 1 at 5 p.m. ET the comment deadline for its Medicaid fiscal accountability proposed rule.

The Department of Health and Human Services has reduced its backlog of Medicare appeals at the Administrative Law Judge level by 31.4%, to 292,517, since AHA and three member hospitals and health systems won a legal challenge to the backlog in November 2018.