News

The Healthcare Financial Management Association yesterday presented AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack with its Richard L. Clarke Board of Directors Award during HFMA's annual conference in Las Vegas. The award, which is HFMA’s highest honor, recognizes Pollack for more than 40 years of executive leadership at AHA and his contributions to health care and the financing of health care services. 

The FBI and Department of Health and Human Services June 24 released an advisory about cyberthreat actors targeting health care organizations in attempts to steal payments.

In a blog published June 24, the AHA responded to a study blaming hospital prices for a host of societal issues, including job losses outside of health care and increased suicide rates. The study, funded by Arnold Ventures, was highlighted in a Wall Street Journal article. 

The AHA June 24 submitted comments to the Senate Finance Committee’s Bipartisan Medicare Graduate Medical Education Working Group, which is developing legislation to address physician shortages.

The AHA June 24 sent letters to Senate and House members supporting legislation that would prevent enforcement of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ final rule on minimum staffing requirements for long-term care facilities.

Site-neutral policies fail to recognize that not all sites of care are created equal, writes AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack in a letter to the editor published June 25 in the New York Times.

Rebecca Chickey, AHA senior director of behavioral health, interviews Linden Oaks Hospital’s Walter Whang, M.D., system physician executive of the psychiatry line, and Gina Sharp, president and system executive of the behavioral health service line, on developing and growing their use of advanced practice providers, including physician assistants and advanced practice nurses.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' Innovation Center has announced it will host a Rural Health Hackathon in August.

The Department of Health and Human Services June 24 released a final rule that would disincentivize health care providers for interfering with the access, exchange or use of electronic health information. AHA previously expressed concern when the rule was proposed, saying it could threaten the financial viability of economically fragile hospitals.

In this episode, I talk with Joy Parchment, R.N., assistant professor of nursing at the University of Central Florida. As a nurse leader, Joy has worked for health systems and in academia. She most recently served as director of nursing strategy implementation at Orlando Health and currently serves as a board member of the American Organization for Nursing Leadership.

Health care pressures are often magnified for rural caregivers, yet some are developing unique solutions for these turbulent times.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center (HC3) this week released an advisory about Qilin, formerly "Agenda," a ransomware-as-a-service group targeting health care and other industries worldwide.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit June 21 partially affirmed the district court judgment that the Preventative Services Task Force charged with determining coverage of certain preventative services was unconstitutional, as well as the grant of injunctive relief for the plaintiffs in the case.

Change Healthcare June 20 began notifying health care providers and other customers with patient data stolen following February’s cyberattack, the company announced.

For too long and for too many patients, the process of obtaining prior authorization for a medical procedure or medicine has been a tangled web, as people are forced to navigate complex, confusing

A United States District Court Judge in Texas today ruled in favor of the AHA, Texas Hospital Association, and hospital plaintiffs, agreeing that Department of Health and Human Services “bulletins” that restrict health care providers from using standard third-party web technologies that capture IP addresses on portions of their public-facing webpages were unlawful final rules and vacating the March 2024 Revised Bulletin.

“Safety Speaks” is a new Advancing Health series where hospital and health system leaders share successes from their organizations’ patient safety efforts.

Ronald Lavater, CEO of the International Hospital Federation, describes tools hospitals, health systems and their boards can use to improve their sustainability efforts in a Q&A with Sue Ellen Wagner, AHA vice president of trustee engagement and strategy, in the latest issue of AHA's Trustee Insights newsletter.

A majority of physicians say the prior authorization process continues to have a negative impact on patient outcomes and employee productivity, according to a survey by the American Medical Association.

Juneteenth reminds us of the enduring legacy of systemic inequities and the ongoing calling to dismantle them, wherever they exist, writes Daniel E. Dawes, founding dean of the Meharry School of Global Health at Meharry Medical College, in a blog for AHA's Institute for Diversity and Health Equity.