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In a brief filed today in federal court, the AHA and three member hospitals reaffirmed their support for four broad categories of non-deadline remedies to reduce the backlog of Medicare billing appeals awaiting adjudication at the Administrative Law Judge level. They also proposed that the court…

In a memorandum to Medicare Advantage organizations, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services yesterday announced new flexibility related to the use of step therapy in coverage of Part B services. The agency will allow MA plans to impose step therapy requirements for covered Part B drugs…

About 14% of babies age one or older who were born in U.S. territories to pregnant women infected with Zika virus since 2016 have at least one health problem possibly caused by exposure to the virus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported today. About 6% had Zika-associated…

2018 premiums in the federally-facilitated health insurance exchanges were an average 50% higher in areas with only one insurer and 21% higher in areas with only two insurers, according to a study reported today in Health Affairs. The study explores three potential theories about why exchange…

AHA today urged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to create or adapt compensation exceptions to the Stark Law to enable hospitals and physicians to coordinate care and improve patient outcomes. “To reach the full potential of a value-based health system, the Stark compensation…

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services yesterday issued a final rule updating Medicare’s hospice payment rates, wage index and quality reporting requirements for fiscal year 2019. Like the proposed rule, the final rule will increase both aggregate hospice payments and the statutory annual…

The departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and the Treasury today issued a final rule that will allow consumers to buy short-term health plans to provide coverage for up to 36 months. Insurers could sell plans with an initial coverage period of up to 12 months with the option to…

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee today held the third in a series of hearings on how to reduce health care costs, which focused on reducing administrative spending.   “According to the American Hospital Association, there are 629 different regulatory requirements from…

AHA today submitted comments to the House Health Care Innovation Caucus in response to a request for feedback regarding innovative policy ideas that improve quality of care and lower costs for consumers. “Based on our members’ experience with designing, implementing and scaling value-based…

“Be better tomorrow than we are today” is the goal of Northwell Health, a large system serving a diverse patient population in New York City and the surrounding suburbs of Long Island and Westchester County. The health system’s work to embed quality improvement across the organization and in…