Featured
- Author: Michael Blodgett
At a recent naloxone training session in Alamosa, Colo., a man in the crowd stood up. “It doesn’t matter if you get it from a dealer in a dark alley or a pharmacist in a well-lit hospital, it’s the same drug, same problem, same withdrawals,” he said. The man was speaking of opioids, a class of drugs that has been associated with high incidences of addiction, overdose and death across rural America.
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Author:
Alan Morgan
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The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), will present a webinar on the recently released Certification Programs for HIT Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM). The webinar will be On March 25, 2010 from 4:00 – 5:00 p.m. EDT..
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Author:
Alan Morgan
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This is "Cover the Uninsured Week" (March 14-20) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) released today a stunning report entitled "Barely Hanging On: Middle-class and Uninsured." This report concludes what we all know to be true, that the two recessions of the 21st century have had a huge impact on people's ability to obtain insurance--and employers' ability to offer it. As providers across the country see bad debt and charity care numbers rising at an alarming rate, this report....
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Author:
Alan Morgan
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This notice was just issued by Amy Hall, Director, Office of Legislation, CMS:The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will instruct all of its Medicare contractors not to evaluate or enforce the supervision requirements for therapeutic services provided to outpatients in Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) for the duration of calendar year (CY) 2010. The final 2010 hospital outpatient prospective payment system rule had specified that a “direct supervision” standard is required....
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Author:
Alan Morgan
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NRHA has submitted its comments to CMS regarding the proposed regulations to implement portions of the HITECH section of ARRA. NRHA's letter outlines our support for the widespread adoption of HIT in rural areas but we are very concerned that many rural providers will not be able to access any of the incentive money. For this reason, we lay out suggestions that would make HITECH program more "rural friendly." The comments are due today at 5:00 pm ET. Please submit a comment and feel free to....
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Author:
Alan Morgan
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The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee last week finished its fourteen day hearing to markup its health reform legislation, the Affordable Health Choices Act. With a final party line vote of 13 Democrats to 10 Republicans, the bill passed through Committee and health reform is one step closer to becoming a reality. That was one step, however, out of many…
The Senate Finance Committee, also with health reform jurisdiction, has yet to release even a draft of its....
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