News

More than 892,000 consumers in states using the HealthCare.gov platform gained 2020 coverage since the end of open enrollment through May by using a Special Enrollment Period, a 27% increase from the same period last year, according to a report released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has updated and expanded its list of people at risk of severe COVID-19 illness, the agency said.

A therapeutic, two-antibody COVID-19 treatment “cocktail” from Regeneron and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority moved to its first clinical trial, the developers earlier this month announced.

The American Medical Association announced a new Current Procedural Terminology code (87426) for reporting antigen testing to detect SARS-CoV-2 infection on medical claims.

AHA urged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to temporarily extend certain waivers and make others permanent beyond the COVID-19 public health emergency to allow hospitals to provide better and more cost effective care to their patients and communities.

Expanding access to telehealth services to provide much more patient-centered, convenient care. Creating additional health care workforce capacity and avoiding workforce shortages. Removing barriers for patients and communities to access needed care.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued its calendar year 2021 proposed rule for the home health prospective payment system.

Suicide deaths increased by 37% between 2000 and 2018, with 41 states experiencing statistically significant increases over the same period, according to a pair of reports released this month by the State Health Access Data Assistance Center.

Democratic leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee released findings from their investigation of 14 companies that sell or help consumers sign up for short-term, limited duration health plans.

Clinicians participating in the Quality Payment Program Merit-based Incentive Payment System in 2020 whose practice was significantly impacted by the COVID-19 public health emergency may apply for an exception to reweight the MIPS performance categories, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently confirmed that Medicare contractors will not calculate an average length of stay for long-term care hospitals for cost reporting periods that include the COVID-19 public health emergency, which took effect March 1.

Nearly 20 health care provider organizations, including the AHA, urged Congress to enact legislation to clarify that relief funds provided through the Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund and other programs as part of the nation’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic are exempt from taxation, and that entities receiving them maintain the tax deductions attributable to these funds.

The Department of Health and Human Services invites stakeholder teams, including health care providers, to submit innovative proposals through Sept. 8 for an online platform to connect older adults, veterans, disabled people and other vulnerable populations to technologies and social engagement programs that can address loneliness and social isolation.

The Behavioral Health Digital Pulse — free to AHA members through a collaboration between the AHA and digital health consultancy AVIA — allows hospitals and health systems to assess and advance their digital strategies to integrate physical and behavioral health.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has created an Office of Burden Reduction and Health Informatics to build on its Patients over Paperwork initiative across Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and Health Insurance Marketplace and use health data to foster innovation and better care.

A National Quality Forum task force released a report identifying opportunities to advance safe, appropriate, person-centered care over the next decade.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response June 26 at 1 p.m. ET will host the next webinar in its series ”Securing the Health Sector,” which will focus on “COVID-19 and the Use of Thermal Detection Cameras in the Healthcare Environment.”

The Food and Drug Administration has partnered with the Critical Path Institute and National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences to launch the CURE Drug Repurposing Collaboratory, a forum for exchanging clinical practice data to inform potential new uses for existing drugs to treat unmet medical needs, beginning with COVID-19.

The AHA urged Congress to revise the Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation Act of 2014 in the next COVID-19 relief package to reflect new insights from the COVID-19 pandemic and the effect of recent post-acute care payment system reforms.

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., dismissed the AHA’s legal challenge to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ final rule mandating that hospitals disclose their privately negotiated charges with commercial health insurers. AHA plans to appeal on an expedited basis.