News

The House today passed by voice vote the Improving Seniors’ Timely Access to Care Act (H.R. 3173), AHA-supported legislation that would streamline prior authorization requirements under Medicare Advantage plans.

Texas Health Frisco; Mayo Clinic Health System, NWWI, Eau Claire, Wisc.; and Orlando (Fla.) Regional Medical Center yesterday received 2022 Environmental Services Department of the Year Awards from the AHA’s Association for the Health Care Environment (AHE). The award recognizes a department’s significant contributions to the overall patient experience and health care organization’s mission.

AHA encourages hospitals and health systems to apply for its 2023 Quest for Quality Prize. The annual award recognizes health care leadership and innovation in improving quality and advancing the health of all individuals and communities. Applications are due Oct. 21.

Prenatal cannabis exposure after five to six weeks of pregnancy is associated with attention, social and behavioral problems that persist into early adolescence, according to a study reported yesterday in JAMA Pediatrics. Supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the study is tracking nearly 12,000 youth as they grow into young adults to understand the factors that influence brain, cognitive and social-emotional development.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services yesterday approved for Oregon the first Medicaid state plan amendment to cover community-based mobile crisis intervention services, an option made available to states under the American Rescue Plan Act. Mobile crisis intervention services provide individuals experiencing a mental health and/or substance use crisis 24/7 access to a behavioral health specialist who can screen, assess, stabilize and refer them to health care, social and other services as needed.

The Los Angeles Department of Public Health, along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, yesterday confirmed the first death due to monkeypox in a Los Angeles County resident who was severely immunocompromised and had been hospitalized.

Commenting today on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ proposed calendar year 2023 payment rule for hospital outpatients and ambulatory surgical centers, AHA said it supports the agency’s decision to end its unlawful cuts to 340B hospitals and urged the agency to promptly restore 340B hospital payments for CYs 2018-2022 without penalizing other hospitals. AHA also voiced support for the agency’s proposal to use Medicare claims data to calculate the monthly facility rate for Rural Emergency Hospitals, and urged the agency to detail the payment methodology and monitor its adequacy going forward.

The United Network for Organ Sharing, which serves as the nation’s transplant system under contract with the federal government, Friday reported its millionth U.S. organ transplant. UNOS and the Organ Donation and Transplantation Alliance credited the organ donation and transplantation community, including transplant hospitals, with making the historic milestone possible. The first successful transplant took place at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (now Brigham and Women’s Hospital) in Boston in 1954.

Insured and uninsured Americans can receive the new bivalent Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 booster and other COVID-19 vaccines at no cost as long as the federal government continues to purchase and distribute them, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced today. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this month recommended Pfizer’s updated COVID-19 vaccine booster for Americans aged 12 and older and Moderna’s updated COVID-19 vaccine booster for Americans aged 18 and older at least two months after completing a primary COVID-19 vaccine series or booster.

Health care providers who received Provider Relief Fund payments exceeding $10,000 total between Jan. 1 and June 30, 2021, must report to the Health Resources and Services Administration by Sept. 30 on how they used those funds or face enforcement actions such as repayment or exclusion from receiving or retaining future PRF payments. The deadline to use these period 3 funds was June 30, 2022.

The FBI today released recommendations to help protect medical devices from cyberattacks that can threaten health care operations, patient safety, and data privacy and integrity, citing a growing number of unpatched medical device vulnerabilities.

September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month — a time for mental health advocates, community organizations, health care organizations and others to highlight resources and raise awareness of this stigmatized, and often taboo, topic.

In this first podcast in a new AHA Advancing Health series, #JustLead, Shana Dacon-Pereira, senior director for the office of diversity and inclusion at Mount Sinai Health System in New York, shares how her organization works to advance equity of care and spread lessons learned, an initiative that earned AHA’s 2022 Carolyn Boone Lewis Equity of Care Award.

The Department of Health and Human Services today reported a 45% increase in call volume and improved answer rates and wait times for the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline this August compared to a year ago. The 10-digit National Suicide Prevention Lifeline in July transitioned to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, meaning individuals experiencing a suicide, mental health or substance use crisis can simply call, chat or text 988 to connect with a trained crisis counselor.

Clinical data from patients treated under an investigational protocol for TPOXX (tecovirimat) support continuing to make the smallpox antiviral drug available to treat U.S. patients with monkeypox during the current outbreak, according to a report released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC protocol includes patient treatment and adverse event reporting forms to monitor safety and ensure intended clinical use.

The Food and Drug Administration yesterday alerted health care providers and the public to reports of squamous cell carcinoma in scar tissue around breast implants, as well as lymphomas different than those previously associated with breast implants. The agency recommends that health care providers continue to report cancers around breast implants to help it identify and better understand this emerging issue.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today alerted health care providers to an increase in pediatric hospitalizations for severe respiratory illness in patients who tested positive for rhinovirus and/or enterovirus, including enterovirus D68 (EV-D68). EV-D68 has been associated with acute flaccid myelitis, a rare but serious neurologic complication involving limb weakness.

This week’s observance of Labor Day reminds us of the many contributions workers have made to America’s strength, prosperity and well-being.

The AHA has elected Marc L. Boom, M.D., president and CEO of Houston Methodist, to a three-year term on its Board of Trustees beginning Jan. 1. Dr. Boom will fill an interim vacancy on the board. He currently serves on the AHA Health Systems Committee and was an AHA Regional Policy Board 7 delegate from 2010-2012 and 2013-2015.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services today approved state plan amendments allowing Indiana and West Virginia to extend postpartum coverage from 60 days to 12 months after pregnancy for Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program enrollees under the American Rescue Plan Act. They join 21 other states and Washington, D.C., in opting to extend the coverage under either the ARPA state plan option or section 1115 demonstration authority.