News

UnitedHealthcare has delayed from April 1, 2021, until Jan. 1, 2022, its requirement that certain in-network laboratories report their unique laboratory-specific codes along with other information for the overwhelming majority of freestanding and outpatient laboratory testing services.

The Food and Drug Administration authorized administering the monoclonal antibodies casirivimab and imdevimab together to certain COVID-19 outpatients at risk for severe disease.

Drug maker AstraZeneca said it will seek an emergency use authorization for its AZD1222 vaccine candidate for SARS-CoV-2 following positive high-level results from an interim analysis of ongoing clinical trials.

Learn how Rogers Behavioral Health, based in Oconomowoc, Wisc., is using the LEAN process improvement methodology to optimize value for patients during the pandemic.

Hospital outpatient departments, critical access hospitals, rural health clinics and other eligible providers may apply through Jan. 3 to participate in the Value in Opioid Use Disorder Treatment demonstration.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has selected 916 primary care practices and 37 regional health plan partners to participate in the Primary Care First model beginning Jan. 1.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will host a Dec. 8 webinar on its final rule requiring hospitals to disclose payer-specific negotiated rates effective Jan. 1.

The Trump administration announced two actions that it claims will lower prescription drug prices.

The Department of Health and Human Services released its final rules with changes to the Stark Law and Anti-kickback statute. AHA members will receive a Special Bulletin highlighting key changes.

Sarah Krevans, president and CEO of Sutter Health, joined AHA Board Chair Melinda Estes, M.D., yesterday to discuss how hospitals can move from relief, recovery, and rebuilding to reimagining and innovation.

The Department of Health and Human Services recently distributed 27,000 portable COVID-19 molecular test kits, which Alaska, Florida, Louisiana, New Jersey, and Texas can use at the point of care to verify antigen test results within 20 minutes.

The Food and Drug Administration authorized the emergency use of baricitinib in combination with remdesivir to treat suspected or laboratory confirmed COVID-19 in certain hospitalized patients requiring supplemental oxygen, invasive mechanical ventilation or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation.

Pfizer Inc. announced it will request emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration for its BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine candidate against SARS-CoV-2.

This year, with so much to worry about, finding time for gratitude seems almost impossible. The irony, of course, is that we need it now more than ever. We just need to look for it.

Like everything else this year, Thanksgiving will be different. We hope that everyone will heed the recent letter to the American people from the AHA, AMA, and ANA … which lays out very strong reasons for not traveling this year, but celebrating instead within our immediate households. Of course we can share the holiday virtually, as we have so much else in 2020.

In this podcast from AHA’s The Value Initiative, UCHealth in Aurora, Colo., shares how it uses digital tools to give patients an individualized out-pocket cost estimate.

On this National Rural Health Day, Michelle Hood, AHA execu

More than 1.6 million people selected a 2021 health plan through HealthCare.gov Nov. 1-14, including nearly 804,000 last week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced.

Nineteen organizations representing physicians and hospitals, including the AHA, urged congressional leaders to support legislation to freeze thresholds for clinicians to qualify for advanced alternative payment model incentive payments for the 2021 and 2022 performance years.

“Our front-line caregivers are our greatest source for what works and what doesn’t — with many life lessons to be learned as we go,” writes Susan Stacey, chief nursing officer/chief operating officer at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center and Children’s Hospital in Spokane, Wash., which continues to care for the majority of COVID-19 patients in the community.