News

The federal government must vacate nationwide its federal fee increase and batching rule for the No Surprises Act’s independent dispute resolution process for certain out-of-network providers and group health plans because they violate the Administrative Procedures Act’s notice-and-comment requirement, a federal judge in Texas ruled Aug. 3, siding with the Texas Medical Association and other health care providers challenging the seven-fold fee increase and restrictions on batching related claims in a single payment dispute. 

The AHA filed its

On today’s episode, I talk with three health care leaders affiliated with the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB): Terri Poe, chief nursing officer at UAB Medicine; Maria Rodriguez Shirey, de

51 senators urged Senate leaders to avert $8 billion in annual payment cuts to the Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital program, scheduled to begin Oct. 1.

HHS alerts organizations to Rhysida ransomware.

FDA last month approved a new long-acting monoclonal antibody to prevent RSV in this age group.

The Sept. 12-13 sessions seek input on whether to permit telemedicine prescribing for certain controlled substances without an in-person evaluation.

Pfizer will ship certain sterile injectable products directly to customers due to high demand after a tornado struck the plant that makes them.

For years, many commercial health insurers treated coverage for mental health or substance use disorders (SUD) very differently than for medical and surgical benefits.

At its National Human Trafficking Prevention Summit, the Department of Health and Human Services announced a national innovation challenge to prevent human trafficking of women and girls.

As some members of Congress propose to weaken Medicare’s prohibition on physician self-referral to new physician-owned hospitals and ease restrictions on their growth, new data from Dobson | DaVanzo show that POHs publicly report on fewer Medicare quality measures and perform worse on readmission penalties than full-service community hospitals

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration released a report reviewing the four principal funding sources for states to finance coordinated specialty care and other team-based behavioral health services for patients experiencing first episode psychosis, the early period of symptoms, as well as innovative strategies adopted by five states. 

Jonathan Schreiber, Cedars-Sinai vice president of community engagement, shares how 2023 Foster G. McGaw Prize finalist Cedars-Sinai Medical Center works with federally qualified health centers and other community partners to advance health and health equity in Los Angeles County.

In a letter to the editor published August 1 in the Wall Street Journal, AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack responds to a recent op-ed by former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and the Center for a Healthy America at the America First Policy Institute, which advocated for site-neutral payment policies for outpatient care. 

U.S. and Australian cybersecurity agencies July 27 warned organizations using web applications about vulnerabilities that enable malicious actors to modify, delete or access sensitive data and urged them to implement recommendations to protect their data from compromise.

In a letter August 1 to House and Senate sponsors, the AHA and 48 other national associations voiced strong support for the Conrad State 30 and Physician Access Reauthorization Act (H.R. 4942/S. 665), bipartisan legislation that would extend for three years the Conrad State 30 program, which allows states to request J-1 visa waivers for foreign physicians to work in federally designated shortage and underserved areas.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Aug. 1 issued the final rule that would increase Medicare inpatient prospective payment system rates by a net 3.1% in fiscal year 2024, compared with FY 2023, for hospitals that are meaningful users of electronic health records and submit quality measure data.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Aug. 1 issued the long-term care hospital prospective payment system final rule for fiscal year 2024.

The Department of Labor July 31 sued a third-party administrator owned by UnitedHealth Group in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, alleging it improperly denied claims for emergency services and urinary drug screening since 2015.

“Some analyses seem to suggest that anything above a zero percent margin is inherently bad, as though the operating goal of hospitals and health systems should be to incur financial losses,” write AHA’s Bharath Krishnamurthy, director of policy and health analytics, and Benjamin Finder, director of policy research and analysis.