News

The number of U.S. suicides declined by 3% in 2020 to an estimated 45,855, according to provisional estimates released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

As U.S. COVID-19 deaths surpassed 750,000, the AHA, American Medical Association, and American Nurses Association continued to urge everyone who is eligible to get vaccinated as soon as possible.

The AHA released Kids, COVID-19 and Vaccines, a video to encourage vaccination among the newly eligible children aged 5-11.

The House Energy & Commerce Health Subcommittee passed by voice vote a modified version of the AHA-supported Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act (H.R. 1667). The changes align the House bill with the version passed by the Senate in August (S. 610). 

The AHA released a new issue of the COVID-19 Snapshot, underscoring the persisting challenges facing hospitals and health systems during the ongoing public health emergency.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued an interim final rule requiring COVID-19 vaccinations for workers in most health care settings, including hospitals and health systems, that participate in the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

Over a two-year period, health care organizations and their community partners in four cities — Atlanta, New Orleans, Detroit and Washington, D.C. — tested and scaled locally driven initiatives to improve Black maternal health equity.

In this Members in Action podcast, Northwell Health’s Viktor Klein, M.D., system director of quality and patient safety for OB/GYN, and Adriann Combs, clinical director of OB/GYN services, share how launching the Maternal Outcomes and Morbidity Collaborative (MOMS) has increased awareness of maternal health complexities, and reduced disparities in maternal care.

The National Institutes of Health will support a four-year study on the potential long-term effects of COVID-19 on women infected with SARS-CoV-2 during pregnancy.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will host a webinar Nov. 10 at 3:30 p.m. ET on the Medicare Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule private payor data collection and reporting policies.

The U.S. Public Health Emergency Medical Countermeasures Enterprise, which coordinates the nation’s medical countermeasures preparedness and response under the leadership of the Department of Health and Human Services, should establish an advisory committee of nonfederal partners to provide strategic guidance on topics such as supply chain and stockpiling considerations, private-sector partnerships for medical countermeasures development, and equitable allocation and distribution of limited resources, a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine study committee recommended.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky, M.D., accepted the recommendation of her agency’s independent Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to administer Pfizer’s pediatric COVID-19 vaccine to children between the ages of five and 11.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released its calendar year 2022 final rule for the home health prospective payment system.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued a final rule that increases Medicare hospital outpatient prospective payment system rates by a net 2.0% in calendar year 2022 compared to 2021. 

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released its calendar year 2022 final rule for the physician fee schedule.

AHA commented on recent Medicare Payment Advisory Commission discussions on possible approaches to reducing spending on Part B drugs and biologicals, improving alternative payment models, and revising the hospital wage index.

A United States Attorney‘s Office is attempting to bootstrap the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services billing guidelines on overlapping surgeries into a False Claims Act case, the AHA and Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania argue in a friend-of-the-court brief filed in a case involving University of Pennsylvania Medical Center.

During an AHA-sponsored Capitol Hill briefing, hospital leaders discussed how COVID-19 has accelerated longstanding health care workforce challenges, including worker shortages and mental health fatigue.   

The AHA and seven other national organizations representing hospitals and health systems urged congressional leaders to remove the reductions to the Medicaid disproportionate share hospital program and uncompensated care pools from the social spending bill known as the Build Back Better Act (H.R. 5376). 

In a study of over 89,000 adults hospitalized with COVID-19 symptoms, prior vaccination with two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine was 77% effective in preventing COVID-19 in immunocompromised patients compared with 90% effective in immunocompetent patients, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.