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The latest stories from AHA Today.
The House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee today held a hearing focused on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ efforts to use data to identify Medicare Part D beneficiaries who are at risk of misusing opioids. The hearing also examined the tools CMS has available to limit…
The Senate Finance Committee voted 15-12 this afternoon to advance the president’s nomination of Alex Azar to serve as Health and Human Services secretary. The former president of Lilly USA and deputy HHS secretary under the George W. Bush administration last week told the committee he would focus…
The AHA, America’s Health Insurance Plans, American Medical Association, American Pharmacists Association, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and Medical Group Management Association today released a consensus statement outlining their shared commitment to improving the prior authorization…
House Appropriations Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ) last night introduced a continuing resolution that would fund the federal government through Feb. 16 and the Children’s Health Insurance Program for six years. The bill also would delay the Affordable Care Act’s medical device tax and…
Kenneth Bowman, division vice president for Kindred Rehabilitation Services at Kindred Healthcare, will serve as 2018 council chair of the AHA’s Section for Long-Term Care and Rehabilitation. Derrick Jones, CEO of Lovelace UNM Rehabilitation Hospital in Albuquerque, NM, is council chair-elect and…
The AHA generally supports the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ proposals to increase flexibility in plan design, cost sharing and enrollment for the Medicare Advantage and prescription drug programs in 2019, but recommends caution to ensure that the added flexibility provides value…
FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., today issued an update on the agency’s efforts to address ongoing shortages of intravenous saline. “Based on the information we’re receiving from companies and the actions we’ve taken at FDA, we continue to expect that the shortage of IV fluids will improve in…
The share of U.S. adults without health insurance rose by 1.3 percentage points, or an estimated 3.2 million people, in 2017 to 12.2%, according to the Gallup-Sharecare Well-Being Index. That’s the largest increase since the index began tracking the adult uninsured rate in 2008, but well below the…
A recent Modern Healthcare article analyzing charity care spending by 20 large health systems “gives readers an inaccurate and incomplete picture of how hospitals and health systems provide tremendous benefit to both patients and their communities, and do so while facing many challenges in…
Hospital emergency department visits related to alcohol use increased 47% between 2006 and 2014, or an average 210,000 per year, outpacing the increase for any other cause, according to a new study by researchers at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Rates increased more…