KHN correspondent Rachana Pradhan discussed vaccine production and supply chains on KERA’s “Think” with host Krys Boyd, C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” and PBS’ “NewsHour Weekend.” She also joined Newsy to discuss how federal rules restrict patients and their doctors from knowing whether someone has been infected… Read More »Journalists Dissect Covid Vaccines and Variants
What You Should Know: – President Biden’s administration today announced a historic manufacturing deal between Merck and Johnson & Johnson (J&J), to expand production of J&J’s COVID-19 vaccine. The collaboration will increase manufacture of vaccine drug substance, as well as its fill-finish capacity – two… Read More »Biden Announces Deal With Merck, Johnson & Johnson to Boost COVID-19 Vaccine Production
“Becerra supports Bernie’s government takeover of your health care, eliminating your employer-provided coverage.” — TV ad funded by Cotton for Senate, Feb. 22 This story was produced in partnership with PolitiFact. It can be republished for free. A digital ad running in Georgia and New Hampshire… Read More »Becerra Has Long Backed Single-Payer. That Doesn’t Mean It Will Happen if He’s HHS Secretary.
Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen on SoundCloud. More than a month into President Joe Biden’s term, nominees to fill some of the top posts at the Department of Health and Human Services are finally getting confirmation hearings in the Senate, starting with… Read More »KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Staffing Up at HHS
KHN senior correspondent Noam Levey discussed Xavier Becerra’s nomination to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services with KQED’s “Forum” on Tuesday. Click here to hear Levey on KQED Read “‘It’s a Minefield’: Biden Health Pick Must Tread Carefully on Abortion and Family… Read More »Journalists Weigh In on Biden’s HHS Pick
U.S. lawmakers have repeatedly highlighted a need to rethink the nation’s long-term care landscape in recent months, partly in response to the COVID-19 pandemic but also because of the country’s rapidly changing demographics. A recently published budget report from the House Appropriations Committee obtained by… Read More »Rural Access to Home Health Services, PACE Among Lawmakers’ Future Spending Priorities
This story also ran on NPR. It can be republished for free. As President Joe Biden works to overhaul U.S. health care policy, few challenges loom larger for his health secretary than restoring access to family planning while parrying legal challenges to abortion proliferating across… Read More »‘It’s a Minefield’: Biden Health Pick Must Tread Carefully on Abortion and Family Planning
As Texas reels from a devasting winter storm, HHS is issuing several waivers to help hospitals continue to provide care amid mounting challenges. These waivers allow non-compliance with certain HIPAA provisions and other federal regulations.
There were nearly 600 healthcare data breaches in 2020, a 55% jump from 2019, a new report shows. Not only did the number of data breaches spike in the past year, but the average cost per breach increased by about 10%.
At a Health Datapalooza session, former HHS head Kathleen Sebelius looked back on lessons learned in 2009 when the Affordable Care Act was moving through Congress. She cautioned the Biden administration against leaning on bipartisanship when restoring the healthcare law.
The Office of the Inspector General will audit Medicare Part B telehealth services to detect potential vulnerabilities and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements. To prepare, providers must first take stock of their programs and conduct audits of their own, experts say.
There’s a new name being circulated for President Joe Biden’s top pick to lead the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Chiquita Brooks-LaSure — a former policy official who played a key role in guiding the Affordable Care Act through passage and implementation… Read More »As Becerra Awaits HHS Confirmation, Biden Reportedly Narrows Picks to Head CMS
Una docena de estados están reportando caídas del 25% o más en nuevos casos de covid-19, y más de 1,200 condados también observan esta baja, según muestran datos federales publicados esta semana. Expertos dicen que la caída puede estar relacionada con el creciente temor al… Read More »Nuevos casos de Covid caen un 25% o más a medida que cambian conductas
A dozen states are reporting drops of 25% or more in new covid-19 cases and more than 1,200 counties have seen the same, federal data released Wednesday shows. Experts say the plunge may relate to growing fear of the virus after it reached record-high levels,… Read More »New Covid Cases Plunge 25% or More As Behavior Changes
According to a national survey of health information exchanges, EHR vendors and health systems commonly engage in information blocking. Insights from the survey can help the HHS enforce its soon-to-be implemented information blocking rules, researchers say.
What You Should Know: – Onyx and AMA Innovations partner to rethink ways FHIR-based messaging technology can improve links between healthcare and community-based organizations. – As part of the collaboration, both organizations will jointly target grant opportunities through HHS’ Administration for Community Living’s Social Care… Read More »Onyx, AMA Innovations Form Collaboration to Build FHIR-Based Messaging
President Joe Biden focused on the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic during his first full day in office Thursday. In doing so, he once again drew attention to home-based care and getting the current “workforce crisis” under control. “Our national strategy is comprehensive,” Biden said during an… Read More »Biden Administration Includes ‘Home Care Workforce Crisis’ in New Pandemic Plan
Dr. Micky Tripathi will lead the ONC as the new national coordinator for health information technology, while agency veterans Liz Richter and Norris Cochranwill serve as interim leaders for CMS and HHS, respectively.
The agency published its first action plan last week for how it plans to regulate machine learning-based software as a medical device. To start, the FDA said it will issue guidance on how changes to algorithms should be regulated as they “learn.”
Ed Simcox, Chief Strategy Officer at LifeOmic The COVID-19 pandemic, which has taken 270,000 American lives to date, has shined a light on another crisis — the U.S. currently has no standardized system for reporting public health data. Health departments all over the country resort… Read More »To Beat COVID-19, We Need A Modern Approach to Public Health Data
What You Should Know: – The ONC today unveiled a series of investments to improve the sharing of health information related to vaccination. – The new investments will provide opportunities to track vaccination progress, help clinicians contact high-risk patients, and help identify patients due to… Read More »HHS Awards Funds to Increase Data Sharing Between HIEs & Immunization Registries
USE OUR CONTENT It can be republished for free. In these first lumbering weeks of the largest vaccination campaign in U.S. history, Dr. Julie Vaishampayan has had a battlefront view of a daunting logistical operation. Vaishampayan is the health officer in Stanislaus County, an almond-growing… Read More »California Counties ‘Flying the Plane as We Build It’ in a Plodding Vaccine Rollout
Ante la pandemia, los demócratas han abogado por ayudas más generosas, más presión sobre las farmacéuticas para que bajen los precios y más atención al racismo sistémico en la atención de salud. El 20 de enero, con el control del Senado y la Cámara de… Read More »Aunque controlen el Senado, demócratas necesitarán apoyo republicano en temas clave de salud
Use Our Content It can be republished for free. Democrats have argued for more generous pandemic relief, more pressure on drugmakers to lower prices and more attention to systemic racism in health care. On Jan. 20, with control of the Senate and the House of… Read More »Even With Senate Control, Democrats Will Need Buy-In From GOP on Key Health Priorities
States will get some much needed support to roll out a coronavirus vaccine. Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services shared it would roll out $22 billion in funding to support state testing and vaccination efforts.
Home health providers are getting one of their biggest wishes granted. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced Friday that it is expanding the Home Health Value-Based Purchasing (HHVBP) Model. First implemented in 2016, the HHVBP Model is currently active in just… Read More »HHS Announces Plans to Expand the Home Health Value-Based Purchasing Model
A new report, from cybersecurity firm Fortified Health Security, shows that nearly 200 more data breaches occurred in the first 10 months of 2020 compared with the year prior — around 80% of which targeted providers.
Assaf Halevy, Founder and CEO of 2bPrecise Electronic medical records (EMRs) are widely expected to serve as a cornerstone technology that drives the delivery of modern patient care. But can the EMR alone support all the informatics capabilities required by an ever-evolving healthcare industry? The… Read More »Meaningful Use of Genomics Requires Informatics Beyond EMRs
A group of hospitals have sued HHS Secretary Alex Azar, arguing he should reverse a policy that prevents hospitals from getting reimbursed for Medicare-related bad debts pending at outside collection agencies. The policy has raised hospital debt payments by about $1.35 million, the lawsuit claims.
A federal appeals court has ruled against hospital groups in their legal challenge to the CMS regulation that would require hospitals to make pricing information publicly available. The rule is set to take effect Jan. 1.
The American Hospital Association and several other entities, including some hospitals, filed an emergency motion to block CMS from enforcing the hospital price transparency rule set to take effect Jan. 1. Provider groups are arguing that complying with the rule would shift focus away from… Read More »Provider groups, hospitals file motion to stop CMS from enforcing price transparency rule
The Patient-Driven Groupings Model (PDGM) was supposed to define home health care in 2020. Instead, this year was almost entirely shaped by COVID-19, a point that’s reinforced by the most widely read stories on Home Health Care News. Of the top-10 stories on HHCN in… Read More »Stimulus Money, Therapy Changes and COVID-19 Strategies: Top Home Health Stories of 2020
The lawsuit follows action by at least a half-dozen drug companies to rein in what they see as waste and abuse in the program, overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services. Meanwhile, the Hospital plaintiffs have a potentially powerful ally in the person… Read More »Hospitals sue drug companies over discount program
The HHS has proposed changes to the HIPAA Privacy Rule — the biggest in seven years, a healthcare lawyer said. But while the changes aim to improve information sharing, they could also bring about challenges for providers and payers.
Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen on SoundCloud. The first vaccine to protect against COVID-19 could be approved in the U.S. within days, but legislation to help fund its distribution remains mired in Congress. And President-elect Joe Biden has tapped California Attorney General… Read More »KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Vaccines Coming Soon but COVID Relief Bill Still Stalled
The Trump administration wants to require the Department of Health and Human Services to review most of its regulations by 2023 — and automatically void those not assessed in time. A proposed rule would require HHS to analyze within 24 months about 2,400 regulations —… Read More »Trump Plan May Set Clock Ticking on Many Health Rules — Setting Off Alarms
SACRAMENTO — President-elect Joe Biden didn’t back “Medicare for All” during his campaign. Yet his choice of California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to serve in the nation’s top health care post is fueling California lawmakers’ most progressive health care dreams, including pursuing a government-run single-payer… Read More »With Becerra as HHS Pick, California Plots More Progressive Health Care Agenda
Anna E. Stevens, CPA, is the Partner-in-Charge of Health Care Services at Weaver, Of the $175 billion in federal Provider Relief Funds (PRF) allocated to healthcare providers, $125 billion has been accepted by hospitals and healthcare providers. The cash infusion was designed to cover costs… Read More »Billions in Federal Provider Relief Funds Have Been Distributed. Now Come Auditing and Compliance.
Xavier Becerra, elegido por el presidente electo Joe Biden para dirigir el Departamento de Salud y Servicios Humanos (HHS), será un secretario de la era pandémica, sin experiencia en salud pública. Si eso importa o no, depende de quién conteste. Becerra construyó su carrera en… Read More »Becerra, un candidato para el HHS con habilidad política pero sin experiencia en salud
Xavier Becerra, President-elect Joe Biden’s choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services, is set to be a pandemic-era secretary with no public health experience. Whether that matters depends on whom you ask. Becerra built his career in the U.S. House of Representatives… Read More »In Becerra, an HHS Nominee With Political Skill But No Front-Line Health Experience
USE OUR CONTENT It can be republished for free. Senate Republicans are signaling they will delay considering President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee to run the Department of Health and Human Services, threatening to slow the Biden administration’s response to the pandemic that has killed more than… Read More »Senate Republicans Throw the Brakes on Timing for Becerra Hearings
President-elect Joe Biden named Xavier Becerra, the current California attorney general, as his nominee for HHS secretary. A 12-term congressman and vocal supporter of the ACA, Becerra would become the first Latino to lead the federal agency if confirmed.
President-elect Joe Biden has picked Xavier Becerra, the current attorney general of California, to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), according to several news reports. Prior to serving as California’s top prosecutor, Becerra represented the Los Angeles area in Congress for… Read More »Biden Picks California Attorney General Becerra to Lead HHS, COVID-19 Response
El presidente electo Joe Biden nombró al fiscal general de California, Xavier Becerra, para dirigir el Departamento de Salud y Servicios Humanos (HHS) de los Estados Unidos. Becerra, quien sería el primer secretario latino del HHS, ha tomado algunas posiciones innovadoras en atención de salud,… Read More »Xavier Becerra en sus propias palabras: “La atención de salud es un derecho”
President-elect Joe Biden has tapped California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Becerra, who would be the nation’s first Latino HHS secretary, has taken some ground-breaking positions on health care, especially since he became attorney general in… Read More »Xavier Becerra in His Own Words: ‘Health Care Is a Right’
Claudia Williams, CEO of Manifest MedEx When doctors know their patients have been to the hospital, they can act fast to provide needed support. Widespread use of hospital event notifications is associated with all kinds of health benefits, including a 10 percent decrease in readmissions… Read More »5 Myth-Busting New Hospital ADT Notification Requirements
Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen on SoundCloud. The quadrennial guessing game about who will get what health job in a new presidential administration has taken on a new urgency in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage. Meanwhile, as two promising… Read More »KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Who Will Run the Biden Health Effort?
New interoperability rules hold promise in making it easier for patients to access and share their health data. But there’s still a long way to go to make a health records turnkey.
What You Should Know: – Today, CVS Health was selected by HHS, as part of Operation Warp Speed, to pilot the administration of a limited supply of bamlanivimab, a monoclonal antibody therapy, with eligible COVID-19 patients at-risk of severe infection or complications resulting from the… Read More »HHS Taps CVS Health for Pilot to Administer COVID-19 Therapy to Patients At Home & Long-Term Care Facilities
What You Should Know: – Google Cloud launches Healthcare Interoperability Readiness Program to help healthcare organizations achieve healthcare data interoperability. Today, Google Cloud launched the Google Cloud Healthcare Interoperability Readiness Program, helping organizations achieve data interoperability in advance of upcoming HHS deadlines and to enable… Read More »Google Cloud Launches Healthcare Interoperability Readiness Program
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday issued an emergency use authorization for the first COVID-19 diagnostic at-home test. The move will not have an immediate impact on in-home care providers, but it could give them one more tool in their pandemic toolbox in… Read More »FDA Signs Off on First At-Home Coronavirus Test
Brett Furst, President at HHS Technology Group Blockchain technology has somewhat infamously been described as “a solution in search of a problem,” but as the healthcare industry responds to the demands of the pandemic, several valuable use cases have surfaced that could benefit from employing… Read More »How COVID-19 Has Revealed Healthcare’s Blockchain Use Cases
What You Should Know: – The HHS and the American Society of Nephrology announces the launch of the COVID-19 Kindey Care Challenge. – The $300k challenge aims to identify and share these frontline solutions so all communities can benefit. Winners will receive $20,000 each in… Read More »ASN, HHS Launches KidneyX COVID-19 Kidney Care Challenge
A recently released 50-page plan details the federal agency’s health IT-related objectives over the next five years and outlines the strategies it plans to use to achieve its goals.
Scrutiny of drug prices will continue whether Trump or Biden wins. But pharma can take steps to address critics and cut costs before they reach a crisis point, according to a panel of industry experts.
Florida’s plan to import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada — designed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and endorsed by President Donald Trump — has tasted its first bitter pill. No private firms bid on Florida’s $30 million contract to set up and operate a drug importation… Read More »Florida Fails to Attract Bidders for Canada Drug Importation Program
San Diego-based diagnostics startup Cue Health won a $481 million from the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense to produce more coronavirus tests. The company received an emergency use authorization in June for its rapid molecular test.
What You Should Know: – Innovaccer unveils new risk adjustment solution to help providers better segment their population to refine the risk scoring process and improve coding accuracy and efficiency, thereby improving performance on risk-based contracts. – The solution utilizes Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural… Read More »Innovaccer Unveils Risk Adjustment Solution For Improved Coding Accuracy
Roland Therriault, President, InSync Healthcare Solutions Since COVID-19 emerged as a major health threat, virtual care has taken off. As many as 46% of patients reported in late April that they had used telehealth to replace a canceled healthcare visit in 2020, while 48% of… Read More »Getting Beyond the Telehealth ‘Stop-Gap’ Mentality
Gerry Miller, Founder & CEO at Cloudticity The coronavirus pandemic accelerated telemedicine exponentially as patients and doctors switched from in-person visits to remote consultations. Health providers rapidly scaled virtual offerings in March and April and traffic volumes soared to unprecedented levels, with practices “seeing 50… Read More »3 Telemedicine Security and Compliance Best Practices
HHS will renew its contract with TeleTracking Technologies for another $10.2 million. Earlier this year, HHS controversially shifted Covid-19 data collection to the company from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which would normally handle data collection.
The investigation resulted in charges against more than 345 defendants for more than $6 billion in alleged fraud losses. Roughly $4.5 billion of that was connected to telemedicine, the Department of Justice said.
What You Should Know: – Anthem extends the use of doc.ai’s platform and portfolio of privacy-first technologies and artificial intelligence software services to drive the personalization of Anthem’s digital assets and create improved value for users. – doc.ai’s product offerings are deployed on its cloud-agnostic… Read More »Anthem Expands Relationship with doc.ai to Power Digital Health Offerings
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology will update data measuring physician use of health IT systems, as well as physician burden and interoperability.
New rules by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services would penalize hospitals and laboratories that report Covid-19 data. Hospitals would be required to report the number of confirmed or suspected Covid-19 patient, occupied beds, and availability of ventilators and other critical supplies.
What You Should Know: – Bridge Connector raises $25.5 million in Series B funding to advance interoperability layer for healthcare organizations as demand for integrated health data intensifies during COVID-19 pandemic. – The investment will support the growth of Destinations, the company’s new integration-platform-as-a-service (iPaaS)… Read More »Bridge Connector Lands $25.5M to Expand Healthcare Integration Platform
A U.S. district judge blocked a rule by the Department of Health and Human Services that would end anti-discrimination provisions protecting transgender patients. In his decision, U.S. District Judge Frederic Block said that the rule violated a recent Supreme Court decision protecting LGBTQ workers’ rights.
After terrorists slammed a plane into the Pentagon on 9/11, ambulances rushed scores of the injured to community hospitals, but only three of the patients were taken to specialized trauma wards. The reason: The hospitals and ambulances had no real-time information-sharing system. Nineteen years later,… Read More »COVID Data Failures Create Pressure for Public Health System Overhaul
What You Should Know: – HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) will award up to five 5 cooperative agreements under the Strengthening the Technical Advancement and Readiness of Public Health Agencies via Health Information Exchange (STAR HIE) Program. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today issued a Notice of Funding… Read More »HHS Announces Investments for STAR HIE Program to Support State and Local Public Health Agencies
In a heated exchange late last month on CNN’s State of the Union, host Jake Tapper pressed Adm. Brett Giroir, the Health and Human Services assistant secretary who oversees COVID testing efforts for the Trump administration, on why the government isn’t requiring commercial labs to… Read More »Could Labs That Test Livestock Ease COVID Testing Backlog for People? Well … Maybe.
Several federal agencies, including the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, have indicated their interest in expanding telehealth coverage after the federal emergency period ends. But to do that, they’ll need the help of states and Congress.
The executive order would call on the Department of Health and Human Services to develop a new pilot payment model for rural hospitals, and would set up a task force to improve broadband infrastructure in rural communities.
Federal watchdogs are once again setting their sights on perceived improper billing practices by home health agencies. In an audit report published last week, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that stronger oversight of Low Utilization… Read More »OIG: CMS Could Have Saved $192M with Stronger LUPA Oversight
Healthcare IT consultants’ work involving health records may expose them – and their provider and payer clients – to regulatory, legal, financial, and reputational risk. These risks are potentially higher in the COVID-19 era, with many of their employees working from home and accessing sensitive… Read More »Cybersecurity: Managing Risk in the COVID-19 Era
A bill introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday would permanently lift site restrictions for Medicare patients to access telehealth. During the pandemic, several restrictions on where telehealth visits could be conducted and what services were eligible were temporarily lifted.
What The Health? · The Trump Administration’s War on Fauci Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen on SoundCloud. Julie Rovner Kaiser Health News @jrovner Read Julie’s Stories Erin Mershon STAT @eemershon Read Erin’s Stories Alice Miranda Ollstein Politico @AliceOllstein Read Alice’s Stories Paige… Read More »KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: The Trump Administration’s War on Fauci
Julie Rovner, KHN’s chief Washington correspondent, on Wednesday joined Rob Ferrett, host of “Central Time” on Wisconsin Public Radio, to discuss the Trump administration’s announcement that hospital data on coronavirus cases will no longer be routed to the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention… Read More »Listen: A Bureaucratic Shuffle for Hospital COVID Data
What You Should Know: – Fenway Health has been selected as the pilot site to participate in the Advancing Standards for Precision Medicine (ASPM) project. – The ASPM project is focused on how healthcare providers can systematically identify the socio-economic factors that may impact the… Read More »HHS Taps Fenway Health as Pilot Site for Precision Medicine Project
“First off, it’s in statute already in HIPAA that preexisting conditions are covered.” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, on July 9, speaking at a virtual summit sponsored by The Hill newspaper One of the most popular features of the Affordable Care Act is… Read More »Azar Says Federal Law Had Preexisting Conditions Covered Before ACA. Not So Much.
March 17, 2020, may well be remembered as the day the telemedicine revolution finally took off. Telemedicine and Telehealth‘s adoption, fast-tracked by Coronavirus/COVID, will create profound changes in how healthcare services are provided — while also spawning new healthcare marketing opportunities. Telemedicine & Telehealth: Innovation &… Read More »