News

Clinical validation audits are a new tactic that certain commercial insurers are adopting to reduce or deny payment to health care providers and can take months or even years to be adjudicated and resolved.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Sept. 24 issued a final rule that would carve out significant, anomalous, and highly suspect (SAHS) billing from Medicare Shared Savings Program financial calculations for calendar year 2023.

The House Sept. 25 voted 341-82 to pass a continuing resolution (H.R.9747) funding the government through Dec. 20 and avoiding a government shutdown.

The Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation Sept. 24 recognized 34 licensure boards and 375 hospitals for changing invasive and stigmatizing mental health questions in their licensing applications. 

The AHA and the Electronic Health Record Association Sept. 23 filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, challenging a Maryland district court decision to allow Linthicum, Md.-based Real Time Medical Systems to proceed with a state-law claim premised on the federal Cures Act's information blocking prohibition.

An EY report prepared for the AHA shows that tax-exempt hospitals and health systems delivered $10 in benefits to their communities for every dollar’s worth of federal tax exemption in 2020, the most recent year for which comprehensive data is available. It represents an increase from $9 in benefits from the prior year despite efforts in battling the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this conversation, Rani Snyder, vice president, program at The John A. Hartford Foundation, discusses the importance of action communities in age-friendly care and why health organizations should use the tools they provide to build exceptional care frameworks.

Augusta Health was awarded the 2024 Carolyn Boone Lewis Equity of Care Award in the Emerging category after showcasing how it leveraged AHA’s Health Equity Roadmap to dismantle structural barriers in its surrounding communities, in addition to providing high-quality health care services, with a strong emphasis on culturally responsive care.

The FBI, National Security Agency and Cyber National Mission Force last week issued a joint advisory about recent actions of China-linked cyber actors compromising thousands of small or home office routers, firewalls, network-attached storage and other internet devices to create a botnet for malicious activity.

September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month.

Drug overdose deaths have dropped by 10% this year compared to last, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Health Resources and Services Administration Sept. 19 announced that it will award multi-vendor contracts for organ transplantation services, continuing an overhaul of the national organ transplant system.

There will always be administrative costs associated with operating a hospital.

Main Line Health’s strategic collection and utilization of data, as well as its initiatives to improve the health of communities of color, earned the health system the AHA’s 2024 Carolyn Boone Lewis Equity of Care Award in the Transforming Category.

Chris DeRienzo, M.D., AHA chief physician executive and senior vice president, participated Sept. 17 in a Newsweek event on physician burnout and how artificial intelligence impacts the issue. DeRienzo was the introductory speaker for the session, where he discussed his work meeting with hospital and health system executives and clinicians across the country, saying that workforce issues are a common theme in conversations. 

The House Energy and Commerce Committee Sept. 18 advanced legislation on expiring telehealth and hospital-at-home flexibilities. The AHA supported the passage of the Telehealth Modernization Act, which extended telehealth flexibilities for two years that are set to expire Dec. 31 and included a five-year extension of the hospital-at-home program.

The Farmer Angel Network support group is devoted to suicide prevention in Wisconsin's farming communities. In this conversation, co-founder Brenda Statz, Carey Craker, marketing and volunteer services associate at Reedsburg Area Medical Center, and Christy Updike, transformation program manager at Sauk Prairie Healthcare, discuss how this impactful work began, the domino effect that suicide can have in farming towns and the resources available to support families and loved ones.

“As pharmaceutical companies throw stone after stone at the 340B program, they should beware of their own glass house. Their complaints ring hollow when it is clear that their own actions are driving growth in the program,” says an op-ed in Medical Economics authored by Bharath Krishnamurthy, AHA director of health policy and analytics, and Megha Parikh, AHA associate director of health analytics and policy.

The Coalition to Strengthen America’s Healthcare Sept. 18 sponsored an event with Politico in Washington, D.C. to discuss innovations in telehealth, artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies impacting patient care and access.

The AHA’s 2024 Governance Survey is now available for AHA-member and non-member CEOs to complete.